Love is Not A Victory March
by Mark of the Asphodel
Summary: Tangled threads of love and duty tie Palla's heart into knots as the great war draws to a close. Palla/Abel and other pairings. FE11 endgame, contains spoilers for FE11 and FE3. Rated T for language.
1. The Great Parade

**Love is Not A Victory March**

**Tangled threads of love and duty tie Palla's heart into knots as the great war draws to a close. Palla + Abel and other pairings. ****FEDS endgame, contains spoilers for FEDS and FE3. Rated T for language.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon_****, _Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo_****, or any of the characters therein. **

*******

**Part One: The Great Parade**

_Flower Moon, 605_

Her teeth jolted with every step, the bones in her back felt as though they rattled together, and her muscles ached from the strain of holding herself upright. The creature beneath her sensed its rider's discomfort-- its large ears twitched in annoyance and it tossed its head, eyes rolling and great yellowing teeth snapping hard upon the bit. Skylark-- so ironic a name for such a terrible beast-- acted as though its rider were a particularly irritating fly, something to be brushed off at the first overhanging branch. This disdain on the horse's part was a challenge to Palla, filled her with a surge of desire to master it. By the time she gave the horse back to its true rider, Skylark might not love her, but would at least be reconciled to her.

"Can anyone possibly enjoy this?" Catria gritted her teeth as she steered the massive war-horse under her own command. Firebird at least behaved more stoically than did Skylark, but he balked at Catria's directions. "He's as stubborn as his master."

War-horses were not simply pegasi without the wings. They were far larger; Skylark stood sixteen hands high, and despite his airy name, the beast was all bone and muscle. Firebird was perhaps a finger less in height, but more muscular still. Palla's old pegasus, faithful Enyo, only reached fourteen hands and was large for her breed. Pegasi stepped with grace on dainty hooves; the brief run before taking flight felt like a delightful bounce. Abel's destrier, weighed down by its trappings and Abel's personal goods, clanked like an armored general. Skylark's hooves could split a man's skull in battle; his teeth could rend flesh from bone-- and had done so. He was as much a weapon as Abel's sword and lance.

"Gods!" Catria swore. "Firebird, you're more of a rock." The horse snorted, and bolted forward as though equally disgusted with his rider. Palla smiled to herself as her younger sister yelped and jerked back the reins of the chestnut destrier. Firebird reared, but Catria's instincts and skill as a dragon-rider kept her seated.

"He did _move_ that time," Palla observed.

"Funny, sis. Ha. Ha."

Palla and Catria gained true control over the horses eventually-- not through caresses and lumps of sugar, as a trainee knight might soften up her first pegasus, but through firm words, steady hands, and the indefinable sense of authority that separated a true rider from one who is merely slung atop a horse like a sack of grain. Skylark and Firebird moved at a steady trot, and Palla and Catria were gaining ground on the young men who'd made off with their dragons.

"They must be having a fine time," commented Catria.

"I hope so. It wasn't the intention to get either of them killed."

Two shadows passed over the ground in front of them; Palla looked up to see her dragon Megaera wheeling in slow circles, borne on a spiraling draft of air. Catria's own Alecto did likewise, and from the ground, the two dragons seemed to be locked in a helical dance. Catria shaded her eyes from the sun to take a closer look at the fliers.

"Abel's hanging on for dear life. And I think Cain might be sick in another couple of spins."

To the experienced flier, to play upon updrafts was perhaps the most perfect sensation of their lives. To not merely _fly,_ but to _soar_-- that was magic beyond the spells in any dusty vellum tome. To a novice, it was a short route to being sky-sick. That Cain and Abel had maintained composure for this long was actually impressive. Palla watched Megaera spiral above her. It was a strange thing to see one's own dragon so far above, a dark silhouette against a deep blue sky. Palla felt a strange sense of apprehension, a shadow of the feeling any cavalier might experience when the shadow of a dragon passed overhead. Under ordinary circumstances, a Macedonian dragoon would never know that feeling. Lost in that strange sensation, Palla watched as Megaera's silhouette grew small, then smaller still.

"Um, we have a ways to go to catch up with them," Catria pointed out.

"Quite right. Let's make good time, then."

Skylark broke into a run as the sisters went dragon-chasing. Palla forgot the ache in her back and her chattering teeth as the air whipped past her face. Each breath of air felt cold and pure, and she let out a shout of sheer excitement, a war-cry without the hate behind it. When Skylark cleared a gully in one bound, Palla could almost believe they were flying.

Cain and Abel managed to land their borrowed dragons without incident. When Catria and Palla drew up to them, the young men had both assumed a casual air, as though they rode dragons every day of their lives.

"Well, you didn't end up in a ditch," said Cain, as though he'd entertained grave doubts that a pair of slender maidens could have survived a brief trip a-horseback.

"Not bad for a pair of pony riders," Abel said to his companion. He winked at Palla to show he didn't intend offense by using the common pejorative for the winged soldiers of Macedon.

"Not bad for a couple of leadfooted Alteans." The kingdom of Altea produced fine swordfighters and cavaliers, but was _not_ renowned for aerial prowess. The common slur ran that Altean girls were too well-fed to keep airborne on a pegasus, though the bite had gone out of that joke in the last few years. Abel's tall, lean figure put the lie to the general impression of his homeland, though Cain did look as though he might fit the image of a stout beef-eating Altean if he lived to be fifty.

Palla reclaimed her place on Megaera. Dragons had their own way of showing affection, quite apart from horses or pegasi, and Megaera's ear-frills blossomed with color upon being rejoined with her rider.

"Shall we head back, then?"

"May as well." Abel shaded his eyes and peered into the distance, at the glittering train marching to their west. "It'll be supper time before we get back, I think."

A great parade of warriors, the colors of six kingdoms united under the banner of Nyna, Princess of Archanea, marched along the road north to Pales. As they rode in closer, Palla saw the fierce destriers of cavaliers, paladins, and mounted bowmen, and the gentle mares and geldings used by sages, bishops, and those less inclined to plunge into a melee atop a living weapon like Skylark. One horse broke free of the main column, headed their direction. Palla recognized the white mare at once; Aurora was one-quarter pegasus, and it showed in her steps. Aurora's rider had his own distinction-- a gold circlet, turned to a halo of light beneath the sun. Catria put up her hand to wave, but caught herself midway.

"He doesn't look terribly pleased," she said in a small voice.

The four knights held position as they waited for the high commander of the Archanean League to approach. Palla saw that Catria was quite right; the Prince of Altea wore the grim expression of a man riding into a duel. He had somewhat delicate features-- a small straight nose and pointed chin-- but was more than capable of looking fierce. Right now, the set of his brows suggested that that he was anything but "pleased." As he drew Aurora to a halt in front of them, Prince Marth did not look at either Catria or Palla. Instead, he focused on his own paladins.

"Quite a scouting mission you ran there, Cain. Broadening your skills, Abel?"

Palla felt Catria shrink away. The sarcasm was restrained compared with the sharp tongues of other rulers the Whitewings had known, but a displeased monarch posed a grave danger nonetheless. The four knights remained mute, waiting for Marth to exercise his anger.

"Did you see any stray enemy forces from that vantage point? No? Did you see anyone at all?" Marth gave them only a second or so to reply before pressing the next question. "Were you looking?"

Palla looked from the prince's stern face to those of his knights. Abel's lips parted slightly, but he closed his mouth again and tilted his head, as though trying to gauge how angered the prince truly was. Cain, though, responded in a low, slightly hoarse voice.

"No, sire. We were not on the lookout. We saw nothing."

Palla looked down at her hands, at the reins, in the tense quiet that followed. It was, she thought, improper of them to go tearing off as though on holiday. The war was not officially ended until the Princess of Archanea was enthroned at Pales. This last journey was no victory march. Prince Marth's words fell like cold rain upon their sunny afternoon.

"Don't get complacent. If wars simply ended with the fall of a tyrant, not a one of us would be here." With that, the prince snapped the reins and rejoined the main column of the army, leaving four errant knights silent and abashed by the roadside.

***

_Ice Moon, 605_

The body of the late king lay on an open bier, stripped to the waist, that all might see him in death. The same subjects that hailed Michalis as the second coming of the hero-king Iote now filed past his corpse; some left offerings of honey-cakes or flowers, some muttered prayers, others walked by silently, red-eyed and grim. Princess Maria knelt by the head of the bier, her Heal staff in hand. She'd used the staff to close her brother's wounds, but there was nothing she could do to bring the sacred spark of life back to his body.

Those in the League from outside Macedon did not know what to make to this tradition.

"Handsome lad, but put some clothes on 'im," one of the artillerymen said. "It's not decent."

This wasn't just the commoners' response. Palla thought she heard the Princess Nyna murmur, "How barbaric!" before slipping away. Prince Marth, though, lingered at the bier for a while. He did not offer prayer-- rather, he stared at the slain king as though in study.

"What a waste," the prince muttered to himself. Palla was not sure of his meaning.

In other realms, a bishop would consecrate a new ruler. In Macedon, from the time of Iote, a new king was acclaimed instead by his fellow soldiers, and presented to the populace by the highest-ranking officer. The divide between the royal siblings set the military hierarchy out of order, and as the Whitewings served Minerva directly, that left Palla in effect the Captain of the Guard. Palla would rather the duty fall to Catria; the middle sister enjoyed addressing a crowd, and often served as the default spokeswoman for the Whitewings. Palla preferred to leave the speeches aside and get on with her work, but this was an honor that could _not_ be laid aside. Macedon's future might well depend on how well Palla acquitted herself. When the sun reached its zenith on the sixteenth day of the Ice Moon, she stood upon the balcony of the Royal Palace before a throng of the people she'd betrayed and waged war upon. Her throat felt as dry as the Khadein desert as she began to speak.

"People of Macedon! I, Palla the White, address you. Your king, Michalis son of Osmond, has fallen honorably in battle. You see his body before you. His lance is broken and his dragon mourns its rider."

The words were not Palla's own-- these were formal phrases, handed down through the last century. There was a way to announce that a king died properly on the field, that the king died in his bed, that the king had been murdered by assassins, that the king fled battle and was struck down as a craven. There was not precisely a way to convey that the king, the slayer of his own father, had been in turn defeated by his younger sister.

"King Michalis left no heirs of his body, but we of Macedon are not a people to be governed by a child!" Some cheered at that, and Palla found the heart to smile. Others took the message differently.

"We won't take the Altean brat!" shrieked one woman.

"Or the bitch of Archanea, either!" a deep-voiced man added. Still more voices howled from all corners of the crowd-- damning Archanea, damning Altea, damning Dolhr for good measure. Palla drew in her breath; she was on the verge of losing this crowd. Her voice rang out, louder than she had intended.

"I do not come to you to place a foreigner on the throne of Macedon!" Cheers drowned out the spite and hatefulness, then, lending Palla the support she needed to finish. "We will accept only a true leader, a proven warrior who has shed blood for Macedon and tasted the blood of Macedon's enemies. Such a warrior flies among us now, a knight descended from the line of Iote and worthy of his shield. I present to you the victor of the battle, the guardian of Macedon, the true daughter of King Osmond of recent memory. I present your commander and queen, Minerva the Red!"

Minerva stepped forward-- Hauteclere in hand, Iote's Shield across her back. The catcalls then turned to cheers to genuine acclaim. The Red Knight had returned to Macedon. The people grieved for their lost hero, but they forgave, and loved, their wayward heroine. Palla felt the thunder of the crowd vibrate through her light armor, and sensed that perhaps the perverted path of fate was beginning to untangle, and the wheels of heaven's fortune spinning free again.

***

_Flower Moon, 605_

Cain took even the mild rebuke from his prince as though it were a death sentence. He passed the rest of the journey to Pales on his guard, ready to cut down any man who might wish ill to the League. Abel, though, wasn't much troubled by Marth's displeasure.

"Of course he's upset," Abel remarked. His low-key, pleasant voice sounded so very sensible. "If you think he's bad now, you should have seen him when we first went to Talys. I thought he was never going to forgive Malledeus for the tactics we used to get out of Altea."

Palla nodded in sympathy; more than once she'd had to leave a wounded comrade on the field, abandoning them to certain death, when every impulse in her heart screamed to go back and rescue them. Cynthia, Roxane, Olympias... friends of her youth, not as dear to her as sisters, but dear nonetheless. Perhaps worse was the situation after Palla and her sisters joined the League; she'd seen dragoons she served with, even recruits she trained, dying on the arrows and javelins of her new companions. She'd held silence while Sedgar of Aurelis raised his bow to take down one young pegasus rider, a girl no older than Est, with the same bright smile and great potential of Est. The young dragoon-- Atalanta-- tumbled into the surf off the coast of Gra, leaving white feathers to float on the green water. And Palla dove forward, not to rescue the girl, but to aim her own javelin at the heart the next dragoon sent up from Macedon. Her choice to join the Archanean league was written in the blood of her countrywomen. The Whitewings of Macedon hadn't merely sacrificed one comrade to the greater good-- they'd sent dozens, even hundreds, to cold unmarked graves. And if Catria let out her grief and frustration, beating her fists to her forehead and screaming "Why?" at the close of battle, Palla swallowed that same grief until she imagined herself icing over, as a pond in winter turns to untroubled stillness.

"You look so deeply sad. It makes my heart ache to see you so."

Palla, startled, looked down to see Abel regarding her with intent green eyes. His hair, shaggy and unkempt after long months on the march, was tossed about in the wind, revealing a slanting scar above one eye. His mouth turned up in a smile that was almost... pleading.

"Abel...."

"Ah, there's a smile," he said. That Altean accent was effortlessly charming. Even the simplest words came out so beautifully. Palla looked down and away, hoping Abel wouldn't think she was playing silent games with him through her eyelashes.

"I was thinking of your prince... he must be terribly lonely. Staying around Cain all day would drag anyone's soul down. I think perhaps you could ease that loneliness a little."

"Ah, he has those dunderheads Gordin and Draug for amusement." The way his hair tumbled across his forehead....

"Oh, Abel," she sighed. She perhaps sounded a little exasperated, though that wasn't what she was feeling. Abel tapped his chin; his lips pursed into a serious line, but his eyes still sparkled with light humor.

"No, you're right. If Cain's determined to supplant old Mally as the court advisor, I should step up and take my place as court jester. Hyah!"

And away he went, handling Skylark as though the warhorse were as pliable as the most gentle mare. Some minutes later, Palla saw the high commander's face brighten in response to one of Abel's comments; it was a salve to her conscience.

***

_Ice Moon, 605_

"Palla, I will speak with you alone."

"Yes, Commander." Palla concealed her surprise; she nodded goodbye to her sisters and followed Minerva down the hall to the royal apartments. Minerva passed her first night as Macedon's ruler in the same room she'd used all her life; items of Minerva's girlhood-- a miniature axe, a small carved pegasus-- lurked in the corners. Palla stood awaiting her orders while Minerva sat in a girl-sized chair carved with dragons. The gilt had flaked away from the wood in places, and the chair showed damage that a young princess might have inflicted with her small knife in moments of idleness. Minerva of Macedon did not say anything for a while. She closed her eyes, and the sharp lines of her face seemed to soften in the flickering light.

"Dress my hair, Palla." Though phrased as a request, the tones were those of a friend, not a sovereign. Palla took up a brush and comb and began to work on her commander's thick auburn hair. The untameable hair added greatly to the conception that the Princess of Macedon was a wild spirit, a bolt of lighting arcing from cloud to cloud. Palla struggled with it until it lay smooth and flat, like a sheet of hammered copper. She then retrieved a hand-mirror so Minerva might see herself changed.

Minerva touched her fingers to her hair, then touched the face reflected in the mirror.

"Michalis. There was a time when I would have gladly traded my hair for yours, my face for yours, my soul...."

Palla had enough discretion to pretend she was temporarily deaf. The late king had been, as the scandalized artilleryman said, a handsome man. Beautiful, even. No surprise his coltish younger sister often felt plain and awkward in comparison. Yes, Palla agreed to pretend this one-sided conversation was entirely about Michalis' fine silken hair and arresting eyes. Still, it was quite a relief when Minerva laid aside the mirror. Palla anticipated her next command.

"My queen?"

"Princess," Minerva corrected her, her voice quick and authoritative again. "We are under the aegis of Archanea; Macedon has no queen-- or king-- until a bishop of Archanea gives his blessing."

With the throne of Archanea itself still technically unclaimed, no new sovereign could be crowned in any nation. Gra, Altea and Macedon all had empty thrones. Still, Palla suspected that Minerva was using protocol as a shelter.

"Commander," Palla said instead, using the inarguable title as a compromise. Prince Marth might command the Archanean host, but Princess Minerva was the commander to whom Palla-- and Catria and Est-- answered in their hearts.

"What shall I do?" Again, spoken as warrior to warrior, friend to friend.

"Commander, if you asked us to, the Whitewings would follow you away across the seas until we reached a land that has never heard of Macedon or holy Archanea."

"I could disappear," Minerva said as though giving it serious thought. "Not to sea, perhaps... I might lay down my axe and enter a convent, spend the rest of my days praying for the souls of my father and brother." Minerva's expressive voice was strangely guarded, and Palla could not tell what was a sincere wish and what was theatrical sarcasm.

"If that be your wish, Commander."

"Had I not seen with my own eyes today...." Minerva shook her head, sending her unruly locks of hair back into disarray. "Macedon will truly not accept a foreigner."

It considerable effort not to gasp.

"A foreigner?" Surely the princess did not contemplate ceding control entirely to Archanea. That would provoke another war before this great war was even finished.

"Palla, if I should fall... Maria must not be brought into this. Take her out of the kingdom entirely. Khadein might be a safe refuge now, or take her to Pales if you must. Even Altea will do. But do not let the farce of queenship fall upon my sister."

"As you wish, Commander." _Protect Maria_. This was an order Palla the White could take without reservation. "What of the Macedonian succession?"

"I will see to that," Minerva said, her eyes veiled. The new queen would keep her own counsel on this matter.

That seemed to end the night's business, and Palla expected to be dismissed. Instead, Minerva switched courses again, launching into a stream of thoughts and words that formed a frightening soliloquy on one subject: Brother. Palla felt a rising sense of claustrophobia as Minerva summoned one vivid ghost after another into the room. Young Minerva, striving to match her brother's every feat in the playroom, the training course, the battlefield. Michalis and Minerva, soaring upon their matched dragons Balios and Xanthos. Minerva, Michalis, and small Maria all together, secure in bonds of love as strong as those that bound the Whitewings. A love so deep, so intense, so awful that in the end it could only be expressed through metal kissing flesh.

The victor of the battle closed her eyes again, too late to keep the tears from spilling down her pale cheeks. She folded up her arms, drawing into herself, clawing at her rich armbands as though she could tear apart the stones and metal.

"Misheil," crooned Minerva, using the childhood name for her brother as she rocked back and forth in her chair. "Misheil, you fool, you bloody fool."

Palla shut the door. She could have gone back to her apartments then, could have unwound herself by talking with Catria and Est, but she felt the need to be alone, to process all the upheavals of the day. Palla made her way again to the balcony, now a place of near-silence instead of mad clamor. The courtyard below was nearly empty; its white stone looked ghostly in the light of a rising crescent moon. She was not alone, though. Prince Marth, too, stood at the balcony, near where Palla had made her proclamation. He noticed Palla, surely, but did not at first acknowledge her. Palla rested her hands on the carved railing, and its chill surface soothed the hot palms of her hands. The official calendar of Archanea called this the Ice Moon, but in Macedon the first month of spring brought clear, cool nights, a respite between the New Rains of winter and the Old Rain of late spring. The skies of the Ice Moon were especially clear, the stars especially brilliant, so that the vault of heaven seemed inlaid with glittering gems.

When Palla had her fill of the stars, she began to covertly examine her silent companion. Prince Marth seemed troubled; Palla watched him bite his lower lip and sweep his long bangs out of his eyes in agitation. The prince of Altea was becoming known for his fair looks as well as his swordsmanship, and Palla could see why Prince Marth had won the heart of young Princess Maria on sight. But while the silvery moonlight made the most of the prince's smooth features and graceful figure, it also made apparent that the high commander of the Archanean League was so terribly young-- younger than Palla, who had quietly passed her seventeenth birthday a few days before. In a nation like Macedon, where girls picked up wooden lances at the age of seven and every fourteen-year-old was expected to hold her own in combat, seventeen was not too young hold Palla's position. But for the nations that valued gray hairs and counsel over valor in combat to entrust such sweeping authority, such ability to play games with the lives of knights and clerics, into the hands of one so young was, as Palla understood it, odd. Extremely odd.

The Starlord blazed across the continent like a comet, overturning the order of things wherever he passed. The Dark Pontifex and Dolhr bore the greatest blame for the destruction, of course, but the rise of Prince Marth and the League had increased the chaos tenfold. Now, Gra and Grust both lay in utter ruin to the north of them. Palla could only hope that Prince Marth had as much energy for rebuilding as he did for knocking things over. Still, if the fate of Macedon was to be any indication, the prince had an interest in justice. Setting Minerva on the throne-- much as the princess seemed to be of mixed feelings about it-- was the only course Palla could imagine that would see Macedon secure. Princess Maria was too young, and would be seen as a puppet of Archanea. Leaving the issue of succession unresolved entirely before marching elsewhere would lead to civil war as every living noble and officer competed in a bloodstained melee. Only Queen Minerva could keep the people of Macedon unified under her shield; surely the princess, despite her grief, did know that in her deepest heart.

The light of the world was turning something over in his hand, something that looked like a shard of glass. Palla's curiosity overcame her silence.

"Sire, what is it that you're holding?"

"This? It's a fragment of the Starsphere-- one of the orbs we found in Raman." Marth turned the shard over. "The Starsphere shattered when Gotoh created Starlight for us."

"We have the Starlight tome, then?" Palla had nearly forgotten their other objective in Macedon.

"Yes. We can move on Thabes once things have settled down here." Thabes, the stronghold of the fearsome Dark Pontifex, the ambition-mad creature who unleashed this war on the continent. Macedon in all its turmoil was but a stepping stone to Prince Marth's true goals: Thabes, and the dark empire of Dolhr itself.

"I don't know if you ever saw it up close," said Prince Marth, "but the Starsphere was decorated with all the constellations of the ecliptic. It was rather pretty. A shame that it broke."

"Ah." Palla had not seen the treasure for more than a glimpse; Marth now passed to her what remained of it.

"This fragment has most of one constellation-- the Desert Scorpion."

Palla examined the pattern engraved on the orb fragment. She knew the constellation by another name-- the Fire Dragon. Every summer, the dragon ruled the sky above Macedon, bringing scorching heat. Only when the Fire Dragon, wounded by a Centaur's arrow, slid down the western slope of the sky would Macedon know the relief of cool breezes and rain. During the winter months, the Fire Dragon slumbered beneath the earth, and great Iote with his lance and shield dominated the heavens. Iote reigned above them now; Palla tipped her head back to take in the whole of his figure, the greatest constellation in the sky.

"They call it Anri in Altea. Anri with Falchion." Marth indicated the row of stars before the sky-hero's belt that did, in fact, suggest a sword. "When I was a child, my nursemaid would tell me that when King Anri died, the gods placed him in the sky to watch over Altea. Once I learned to read, I found an old book of sky-maps that dated to before the founding of Altea, and of course the constellation was there. The stars have always been there... only the stories change."

"Only the stories...." And Palla felt a premonitory shiver. Perhaps the wheels of fate were grinding some new tale out of their own lives. The piece of the Starsphere lay cold in her hand, and Palla wondered if its destruction might not be a portent of doom.

*****End Chapter One*****

Author's Notes:

This story will jump backward and forward in time; the idea is not to convey a sense of "OMG what comes next!?!" but to detail the significance of what goes on in any given moment. Other things that warrant explanation--

Ice Moon, Flower Moon: I didn't feel comfortable using a Latinate calendar, so I made my own based off various traditions. Ice Moon = February, Flower Moon = May, and the solstices and equinoces mark the mid-point of seasons rather than the beginning.

Creepy Macedonian Siblings: My starting point was the FEDS script, OK?

Well-fed Alteans: Altea has rich soil per FEDS, while Macedon and some of the other kingdoms, according to notes on Serenes Forest, do not.

Macedonian Warrior Culture: Shades of Ancient Sparta, but with little girls. I took my cues from the Greek myth names and Macedon's gladiator-based origins.

Constellations: Iote/Anri = Orion, The Fire Dragon = Scorpius. There really is a Scorpius fragment of the Starsphere in FE3. Macedon is at a lower latitude than Altea, so Scorpius rises much higher in the sky instead of scuttling along the horizon.

Character ages derived from the FE3 novelization as posted on Serenes Forest. Imperfect, but it's the semi-quasi official source.

Oh, and the dragons and Macedonian pegasi have Greek-myth names, while the Altean horses have names with a different common thread. :)

Finally, the title comes from the John Cale adaptation of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." I listened to prodigious (read: scary) amounts of Leonard Cohen whilst writing this.


	2. Pawn Sacrifice

**Love is Not A Victory March**

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon_, _Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo_, or any of the characters therein. **

**Warning: Contains battle scenes, mild fantasy violence, and species-ism against the dragonkin.**

*******

**Part Two: Pawn Sacrifice**

_Storm Moon, 605_

"If there should be an attack on the capital, you'll come flying to us with the news. You're our messenger, Est-- you're the only hope of the garrison here if they need reinforcements."

The liberation of Macedon (the official name of that phase of the campaign) marked a turning-point in the war. No longer would the whole of the League march as one. Pontifex Wendell went to Khadein to take command of the fabled city of magic. An Altean contingent, led by Sir Arran, returned to guard Prince Marth's homeland. Most critical was Pales, the capital of the holy kingdom; the finest knights of Archanea formed a garrison to defend the city for their princess. And Est of the Whitewinged Order of Macedon would likewise remain at Pales.

Est tipped her head to the side and considered Palla with large eyes as she considered the gravity of her mission.

"Okay, sis! But... how will I know where to find you?"

"The same way you always do." Palla took her sister by the shoulders and held her close. "Our hearts call to one another across the skies."

"Right!" Est said, all doubt vanished from her face. "You can count on me, sis. I'll get there, no problem."

***

_Flower Moon, 605_

Every Macedonian dragoon aspired to become a Dracoknight. In one of the happier moments of the campaign, Palla found her skills matured to the level that she could handle a dragon mount just at the time of their return to Macedon, the aerie of Archanea. As the League closed in on the royal stronghold, where Michalis waited for them, Palla found a dragon bereft of a rider. The dragon accepted Palla, accepted the name Palla gave her, and from then on, they were as one in the air.

Catria had to bear with the limits of her pegasus Deino for a time thereafter, as she didn't find a dragon for her own until after the first round of slaughter in Dolhr. It reassured Palla to see her sister borne on a dragon that matched Catria's fierce personality. Deino would not have had the endurance to handle that final assault on the keep of Dolhr. Palla mentioned this to her sister after the battle, when Alecto had proven herself a fine companion for Catria. Catria, though pleased herself with Alecto's performance, had a wistful response.

"Poor Caeda. She wanted so much to be a Falcoknight."

***

_Storm Moon, 605_

The march to Dolhr had a different character than the campaigns that preceded it. Beyond the missing faces in the ranks, Palla noticed a new feeling in the air, a shared premonition of something tremendous that lay just beyond tomorrow. Palla couldn't put a name to the feeling, but she pictured it as a mass of thunderheads on the horizon, a warning that a great storm was at hand. It was not her imagination-- the dragons and pegasi sensed it, the horses sensed it, and the soldiers sensed it from their leaders on down.

Minerva had a place by her fellow rulers; now that she was the acknowledged head of Macedon, she spent her days in conference with Princess Nyna, and Duke Hardin of Aurelis, and General Lorenz of Grust. Hardin and Lorenz, while not kings themselves, were the _de facto_ powers in their respective kingdoms, and had numerous League soldiers under their command. Palla understood the change, and was glad to see Minerva adapt to this role, but she missing flying alongside her commander. Est, of course, was in Pales, leaving another gap in their formation. As for the other Pegasus Knight, Caeda did not often fly with them. Caeda considered herself a recruiter and morale-booster; she added many a fine warrior to the League, and took a keen interest in the welfare of her recruits. She flitted through the ranks, stopping to chat with anyone who showed a long face, and reported signs of trouble back to the commanders. The League took in defectors from the opposite side-- runaways from the army of Grust, thieves and pirates who'd seen a change of heart, plus a certain trio of Macedonian traitors-- but no one defected _from_ the League on Caeda's watch.

So Palla and Catria found themselves most often in the company of another double act, the young Altean paladins. The Alteans had been a tight circle at first, but over the course of the campaign, they slowly opened up to their fellow soldiers. Draug struck up a friendship with a fellow armor knight, while Gordin managed to work his way into the circle of the Archanean bowmen. That left Abel and Cain to cast about for new companions, and in the end they closed a new circle with the remaining Whitewings. The foursome quickly found themselves compatible; not only were they well-matched in terms of speed, mobility, and endurance, their personalities joined together so easily that it seemed a loss that it had taken so very long to befriend one other.

They began to split watch duties, and found pairing air and ground coverage to be the most efficient way to respond to a threat. Soon they foraged together, set up camp together. When necessity demanded a night march, they kept themselves alert through song. Their voices-- tenor and baritone, soprano and alto-- mingled with surprisingly tuneful results. It turned out Abel could play the Altean lute, and had in fact acquired one on their pass through his homeland; Palla wished she had a Macedonian lyre to accompany him. Perhaps, as they marched in the direction of Dolhr, some vendor might have one....

But there was little life on the road to Dolhr. The land was so like Macedon, with its rugged mountain peaks and stands of ancient forest, yet everything was overlaid with an air of desolation. It wasn't the sense of human tragedy that permeated Gra, already known as the "Land of Sorrow" for its utter devastation. This seemed something more ancient, more powerful. Palla felt out of place, felt that humans simply didn't _belong_ on this land. And yet, when Palla looked at those bare-toothed mountains, at the deep blue of the winter sky, at great Iote standing guard over the heavens at night-- it was _almost_ like home.

The Alteans had good-natured complaints about the rations as they went south-- they looked with suspicion at the gruel made from chestnut meal, at the soft and pungent cheeses, at the idea of eating a goat.

"They eat _rubbish_," Abel stated, as though it were proven fact. "It's like eating fish dredged from the bottom of a channel."

"No, they don't," Palla insisted. No sensible herdsman of Macedon would feed rubbish to a goat, the major source of sustenance for many a poor family. Macedonian fields produced little wheat, but there were olive groves and towering chestnut trees. Macedonian pastures nourished few cattle, but the great southern ocean had a bounty of fish and other fruits of the sea. If their diet was simple, the boldest aerial knights on Archanea did not suffer any from it.

Palla, in truth, was horrified at the food consumed at the festivals that followed the liberation of Altea. One slice of the wheat pastry filled with spiced meat had left her feeling ill, and she'd seen Cain eat an entire round of the stuff. Draug ate three. So, if Palla derived no small amount of pleasure from the Alteans' horror at their current fare, it was only in defense of her own stomach.

The next watch she shared with Abel, Palla volunteered to do the cooking. Abel stood guard while Palla assembled their supper-- chunks of meat the size of a hen's egg threaded between larger chunks of fat upon a skewer. Palla seasoned the meat with a few familiar herbs collected around the camp, then roasted the skewers over the fire until the outside of each piece was nearly burnt. When Palla took the meat off the fire, each piece was charred on the outside, yet nearly raw on the inside. To her, it tasted as good as anything she had ever eaten.

"Pretty good," Abel admitted. "For _goat_."

"Thank you." For Palla, the taste brought back a score of memories-- her early days of training, her first solo mission when she'd had to fend for herself, the nights she'd taught those survival skills in turn to Catria, to Est....

"Cain wouldn't like it so much," Abel said as he started in on a second skewer. "Hates his meat rare, did you notice? He'll wade in a river of blood without flinching, but one drop of red on his plate and he wants to be sick. I don't understand it."

"He is ever the serious one." Cain spoke seldom and smiled still less.

"He didn't used to be," replied Abel. "He was quite the jokester once. Had a temper, too. He'd stomp and shout and go red in the face when we were younger."

Palla smiled at the image; she thought she knew now where Cain's sobriquet of "Great Bull" truly originated.

"We didn't grow up, really, until we were in Talys. Having all the adults disappear suddenly rather does that do you." He sounded thoughtful instead of bitter, as though he'd not had _time_ to consider the situation until that moment. "Draug was the oldest, besides Jagen of course, and he was all of twenty. Then me, then Cain. Then Gordin and Marth. The five of us, and two old men. For all we knew, that was what remained of Altea."

Palla understood the strange wonder in his voice; for months, she, her sisters, and their commander had been a country unto themselves, Macedonians bereft of their Macedon. They had chosen that path, though, while the young Alteans had their country stripped from them. She had a strange vision of those five boys training in the rustic castle of Talys-- Cain and Abel in a sparring match, Cain's hair turned to fire in the late afternoon sun. Gordin aimed his practice arrows at a scarecrow while Draug tried to interfere with the young archer's concentration, and the prince, steeped in melancholy, sat apart from them with a book propped open before him. The picture was so vivid that, if Palla possessed any talent with a brush, she might have painted it. Abel was speaking, though, and Palla stopped imagining the boy Abel in favor of focusing on the very real young man before her.

"I envied him a little. It was the greater honor, you see, to stay at the castle to guard the queen and her children, but it seemed much less exciting. Cain was sent to battle because he had less experience than I-- he could barely aim a javelin in those days. We said he was only good for whacking people with swords, and what's a sword compared to a lance? He had two elder brothers, and they thought they could keep him safe."

Palla knew how the story ended, but nonetheless concentrated on every syllable Able spoke. To hear, for the first time, Abel's own account of the events that transformed him from child to man was like hearing a bard perform his own version of a familiar ballad, a very old tune with new lyrics. Palla felt her heart ache in concert with the eternal lament that flowed beneath Abel's words.

"Cain was the only one to come back alive."

Cain did on occasion let his guard down-- if no females, knight or cleric, happened to be around. Catria had a boyish enthusiasm that allowed Cain to be comfortable with her, to speak to her as he would Roshea or any of the younger knights. When conversing with Palla, Cain remained stiff and formal-- Abel's comparison of Cain to Malledeus was terribly apt, except the elderly tactician was _more_ at ease around "young ladies." Abel had no such issues that Palla could see. He was respectful to princesses, cordial to his fellow knights, and showed the famous Altean knightly chivalry to villagers and serving-maids. If Altean paladins sometimes made themselves annoying with their sense of storied romance, Palla had to admit that their attitude could be... charming.

She noted, too, how good he was with the youngest among them-- a trait nurtured in Talys, no doubt. Abel always had a kind word and smile for Tiki, the child-princess of the manakete race. Many in the League either feared Tiki or considered her a tool, something akin to a breathing, speaking counterpart of the Gradivus lance. Abel treated Tiki not as a living goddess or an ultimate weapon, but a young girl who'd been through a nasty time and needed a bit of care. In this he followed his prince's lead-- whatever Marth planned for Tiki in terms of battle, he was certainly kind to the child-- but that attitude was not universal. In Abel, that attitude went beyond just Tiki. He would drop back to ride alongside poor Princess Maria, to lift the mood of that too-serious child. And, of course, he was so very considerate with Est....

Yes, Est. Abel took time to thank the youngest Whitewing for her mad mission. Some of the elder knights snorted at the addition of a mere _child_ to their ranks, as Est was months younger than Caeda of Talys and had even less experience. But Abel made sure to complement Est for her courage and pluck in single-handedly delivering the Mercurius sword to Prince Marth. He ruffled her hair; he offered Est's beloved Tisiphone an apple. And Est, dazzled by this young man who towered over her as a poplar does a sunflower, tagged in his footsteps. If Abel stood in the light, Est was hiding in his shadow. Abel's squire, some of the older knights called her.

"Abel this and Abel that," Catria said in mock disgust one night as the three sisters huddled against the cold. "Come _off_ it, Est. Can't you just admire him in silence like the rest of us?"

Est's eyes grew larger and her voice much smaller.

"You like Abel, too?"

"No!" Catria said hastily. "I mean... there are a lot soldiers in the League who have someone they admire very much. Nobody else is sending out a constant stream of chatter like you, Est." And Est, her curiosity pricked, began demanding to know who these other lovelorn members of the League were. Catria spent the remainder of the night dodging Est's trick questions, and Palla smiled at them both.

While Palla felt a pang of caution over the love-light in her little sister's eyes, she was deeply grateful to Abel for his consideration. He'd even dropped by to say farewell and good luck before Est departed for Pales.

"Don't take offense when I say that I hope I don't see you for a while, Est. If I see your pretty Tisiphone sailing over the mountains of Dolhr, I'll know there's trouble in the capital, and we all hope that doesn't happen. So, let's meet again in Pales, eh?"

He then gave her a packet of sweets-- sugar drops flavored with Altean roses and violets. Alteans loved their flowers, called the fourth month of the year the Violet Moon and the sixth, the Rose Moon. Est, who'd pelted Abel with questions about his homeland, knew this and saw something deep and meaningful in the gift.

"I'll save these and have just one a day until you come back," she said to Abel. And Palla, who knew how difficult Est found it to resist honey-cakes and other sweet things, heard something in the promise that Abel likely missed.

Est could have chosen worse, after all. She might have found the air of mystery around the swordmaster Navarre to be intriguing, and Palla suspected there were things in Navarre's past best left unexplored. She might have fallen for the handsome face of Wolf of Aurelis, and had her affections repulsed by his cold personality. Worse, she might have set her sights on Astram, when the Archanean hero very clearly had a love already in Lady Midia. To be infatuated with Abel of Altea-- he of the disarming smile, kind heart, and deeply _tolerant_ approach to life-- no, that was safe by comparison.

That tolerance interested Palla the most; so many in the League had an approach to life as narrow as the bloody bridge of Chiasmir. For all that they depended on one another for survival, the various factions of the League maintained a sense of distrust toward foreigners and foreign customs. Abel wore his Altean heritage openly, and yet he learned a few words of dragon-speak from Tiki, he took some archery lessons from master sniper Jeorge of Menidy, he listened to the advice of old General Lorenz. He was willing to try roasted kid, Macedonian-style.

"Nothing can grow without rain," he would say. An Altean proverb, it had resonance for Palla. Macedon's thin and rocky soil depended on the winter rain for its harvest; a dry winter meant famine. For Abel, hailing as he did from fertile Altea, where cattle grew fat through the summer and water was never in short supply, the proverb meant something less than the creed of survival. Enough rain fell on Altea that one might be ungrateful about it, so his adoption of the proverb reflected something of Abel's inner spirit. Abel accepted the rain, and so Palla grew ever warmer towards him.

Yes, she missed having Est to complete the Whitewings' triangle, missed private moments with her own commander, but Palla did not regret passing time in Abel's company. They did make a complementary pair, she thought-- White Knight, Black Panther. Black for the sable tunic he wore beneath his armor, panther for his fluid grace. He was so at ease with his own body that he could almost appear lazy-- slouching in his saddle, sprawled in a chair-- and yet the mere hint of a threat would transform Abel into a swift and deadly predator. Prince Marth hadn't entrusted the fabled Gradivus lance to Abel out of favoritism. Simply being the prince's childhood companion wasn't enough to have young Gordin given the Parthia bow. Abel was given the Gradivus because, with Camus of Grust lost to them, Abel was the most capable lance-wielder upon Archanea. Yet, when he smiled, when he laughed, when he told stories with the music of Altea coloring his every word, for a few moments he and Palla could almost leave the battlefield behind. Almost.

***

_Snow Moon, 604_

In her dreams, they came for her sisters, and her limbs turned to ice. She could not aim her lance; she could not so much as scream. Traitors, they hissed, through teeth exposed by rotting gums. _Traitors_. Empty eye sockets turned in accusatory stares, and blackened fingers pointed while tongueless mouths cursed and screamed and wailed. Young Atalanta, her bright hair trailing ocean weeds, reached out with skeletal hands. _Captain, why? _And Palla could not answer. It was only when she woke, when she broke free of the webbing of the dream and returned to herself, that she could say, "I am sorry it had to be this way. Fate set us on opposite courses. Forgive me, but I could not have chosen any different."

She dreamed of Lefcandith Valley, where Minerva and the Whitewings stayed their weapons while the archers of the League cut down their comrades. Palla would come face to face with Merric, would see the young mage smile as he unleashed a whirlwind that knocked Est from the skies. She dreamed of Pyrathi, of Catria's mission to cross enemy lines and converse with Prince Marth alone. Catria would close in on the prince, only to encounter a baby-faced Altean archer with a shining steel bow. She dreamed of the fall of Gra, of their defection from the Macedonian army. Palla would search the coastline for a glimpse of the prince without success; she then would fly to the side of a young cavalier with brilliant green eyes, only to have his horse rear, his javelin plunge into her heart. At the water closed over her head, Palla mourned the ruthless nature of their world.

***

_Ice Moon, 605_

Caeda did not envy Palla her new dragon. In distant Talys, far from the aerie of Macedon, a seasoned Pegasus Knight would aspire to ride the rare Falcon Pegasus-- graceful beyond compare and resistant to all but the strongest spells. Palla asked the younger knight why she would sacrifice the strength advantage of riding dragonback in favor of a comparatively frail mount. She expected Caeda to say she wasn't comfortable with dragons, or to laugh it off with a comment about how beautiful she would be as a Falcoknight. To Palla's surprise, Caeda replied that she desired above all the advantage she'd gain over enemy mages.

"Prince Marth has such trouble with mages," Caeda sighed.

In the meantime, Caeda made do with her hardy little island pegasus-- a different breed from the pegasi of Macedon, unable to fly as high but able to cope with greater privation and more diverse weather conditions. Even so, Tempest was showing signs of fatigue, and Palla wished that Caeda could simply borrow a dragon from the Macedonian stock. It would not do, though-- once a knight had taken a dragon, there was no changing back to pegasi. Pegasi loathed the scent of dragons, and while they could fight in the company of dracoknights, any dragon-touched rider would find herself thrown by the next pegasus she mounted.

***

_Storm Moon, 605_

A riderless horse bucked upon the fields of Dolhr. Palla swooped down to see if she might rescue the rider, for the horse was decked in the azure trappings of Altea and its allies. It was Castor, the young horseman from Talys. Half his face was coated in a mask of blood, but he was still breathing. Palla used one of the two vulneraries left in her stock, yet the potion only helped Castor a little. She was debating whether or not to expend the other vulnerary when Bishop Lena ran up in a flurry of blue robes.

"Bless you, Lady Lena." The Bishop already was at work with her Mend staff. It was the cardinal rule of the battlefield-- heal first, ask questions later. While a staff might create a heartbreaking illusion by restoring apparent health to those already dead, nothing save the Aum staff could help a soldier if the healer arrived too late. And the Aum staff wasn't yet in their hands. Palla waited to see how effective Lena's treatment would be, thinking that Castor was lucky to have taken only a glancing blow to the head. Just as a staff could not replace a missing eye or limb, there were some injuries-- terrible wounds to the head, some types of spell damage-- that simply didn't heal.

After several moments, Castor blinked and rolled himself over, wiping the blood from his eyes with a moan.

"Leave him to me," Lena said, in a soft voice that mingled the accents of Macedon and Grust.

"Thank you, Lady Lena." Lena was a Bishop by vocation, but a noblewoman of Macedon by birth. To Palla, the titles bore equal weight. Palla mounted Megaera again and headed for the great tower of the Resurrectory, supposedly the home of a great treasure. Fighting was fierce around the base of the tower, as it was defended by fire-dragons and mage-dragons. Mage-dragons, known in Macedon as demon-wyrms, were far more dangerous than an ordinary manakete. Even weapons specialized for slaying manaketes-- wyrmslayer swords, or dragonpikes-- were only useful if the weapon-holder struck first and struck true. A wounded demon-wyrm often proved a lethal adversary.

A particularly fearsome demon-wyrm who called himself Xemcel guarded the northwest corner of the field, preventing the League from accessing Dolhr Keep. Palla gave him a wide berth and circled back toward the Resurrectory. Abel, Prince Marth, and Tiki were in the process of clearing out the manaketes, and Palla joined Catria in holding off reinforcements while the League's foremost team of dragon-slayers did their work. The Gradivus made short work of demon-wyrms, as did Tiki's astonishing powers. Most impressive of all was the Falchion; Palla finally understood why Prince Marth had put them through such lengths to capture the Blade of Light. Palla was so caught up in watching Marth and Abel that a fire-dragon nearly caught her; after that jolt, she stopped her dreaming and threw her heart into the battle.

Before long, the Resurrectory and its treasure chest were theirs.

"Palla!" The high commander flicked his long hair out of his eyes as he looked up at her. "Palla, we have word of dragoon reinforcements to the north. Take a look around and see if we need to wall off the northeast passage."

In spite of the threat of enemy reinforcements, the prince displayed a smile that was almost cocky. With League troops literally circling the final stronghold of darkness, it must have seemed-- at least for a moment-- that taking on Dolhr Keep would be another mopping-up, as easy as claiming the Resurrectory.

"Once we get the Aum, we'll be headed to the Keep," Marth continued. "Xemcel is isolated now. This won't be much longer."

"Yes, sire."

Palla scoured the mountains, and found there nothing but a pert young girl who'd set up her traveling shop in hopes of attracting business from the battle. Palla was surprised at the girl's audacity, and repaid her for it by loading Megaera with rare goods. But there was no trace of the enemy, and Palla set a course south, for Dolhr keep. A quick swoop around the fortifications near the great tower told Palla that the demon-wyrm Xemcel lay dead at his post before the Keep. Yet, the field did not have the atmosphere of a League victory. After a successful battle, the high commander would address his troops with thanks, or would invite Princess Nyna to do so. Yet all the soldiers were scattered, some in small clusters and some off on their own. Palla saw no trace of Prince Marth, or of Princess Elice either. She scanned the field and saw others missing. Tiki, Merric, Ogma, Lady Lena, Princess Maria... surely they could not have stormed the keep while Palla paid her visit to the shop girl. Princess Maria would never have been taken along for that mission. Palla was beginning to wonder exactly how much damage Xemcel wrought before his death when she finally caught sight of her sister.

Catria stood by a small abandoned fortification; the middle sister of the Whitewings was caring for her weary pegasus.

"I'm sorry, Deino. This was the last battle, I promise. I'll never put you through this again."

Something in Catria's voice sounded strangely... dull, like the muted sound of a cracked bell.

"Palla, will you help me find a decent dragon to ride? With all the dead Macedonians laying around here, I'm sure there's a dragon for me somewhere."

Yes, Catria was in a state. Palla recognized the hollow look in her sister's eyes, the same look she'd seen in Princess Minerva after the duel with Michalis.

"Catria, what is the matter?"

"Caeda. She-- she's dead."

"Oh." Palla didn't feel the impact of Catria's words, yet. It would hit later, sometime in the night when all the energy of battle drained away. "How terrible. We do have the Aum staff now...."

With that staff, Princess Elice might bring one ally back from the realm of the dead. One, and only one, but surely the brave young knight of Talys was not someone who could be let go of so easily.

"No," Catria was saying. "We _haven't_ got the Aum."

"Was it a trick?" Palla thought in disgust of the false Falchions Gharnef laid in their path.

"No. Prince Marth had Elice use it already. On Tiki."

"_Tiki_?"

Catria explained in halting, fragmentary sentences. The old manakete Bantu had warned Tiki not to overuse her divine-dragonstone, lest Tiki become intoxicated on her own power and accidentally harm her friends. So Tiki tried to conserve that power, relying instead on the less potent Firestone whenever possible.

"Firestones? They don't work on demon-wyrms." Catria laughed; the sound was somewhere between a bark and a sob. It took a while longer to get the rest of the truth from Catria: two separate catastrophes, two young fighters laid out on the barren ground of Dolhr, one Aum staff, and one terrible choice.

Tiki. _Yes,_ Palla thought. _Yes, of course. _With Dolhr Keep just beneath their encampment, with all the efforts of war now concentrated in one small patch of land... the individual happiness of each soldier in the League would mean nothing if their next mission failed. If one placed the heart of the army in one pan of a balance, and their ultimate weapon in the opposite pan, the weight came down on the side of the weapon. Keep Tiki alive for the next battle, unleash her goddess-power on the forces of Dolhr, and then grieve.

Palla talked Catria to sleep that night.

***

_Flower Moon, 605_

Prince Marth called her in for private conversation. The scouting-mission indiscretion seemed forgotten; instead, he interviewed Palla at length about the late ruler of Macedon-- what sort of man Michalis had been, before and after his bloodstained coup. What would drive a man to murder his own father? What sort of man, what sort of king, would farm his small sister out as a hostage? Would Palla term Michalis a tyrant? What was Palla's definition of a tyrannical king, then? Was it true that Michalis sent any soldier who showed fear to the front lines in hopes of having them killed?

"That would be a misinterpretation," Palla said slowly. "It's a long-standing tradition in Macedon to send shaky recruits out for a trial in battle. Either they find courage, or they fall." Palla herself had passed that test long before, whereas Catria and Est showed enough fire and guts not to be even threatened with it.

"That's a terri--" The prince cut himself off. He began to sift through the papers laid out before him. In contrast to the spare furnishings of the Whitewings' tent, the high commander had a number of lovely pieces at his disposal, including wooden chairs and a beautiful portable desk. Palla had difficulty with the formal scripts used in the courts of Archanea and its satellite kingdoms; standard Macedonian script was quite different, and so most of the papers made little sense to Palla. She watched the prince's long fingers instead. The tips of his fingers were colored by the sun, but the backs of his hands were pale, a consequence of wearing open-fingered gloves in battle and on the march. Then an odd piece of paper caught her attention.

"What is the picture?"

"This? It's a design for some windows to replace the ones smashed in the Great Hall." The Hall of Castle Altea, of course. The occupying forces of Dolhr were not considerate guests. Sir Arran and his garrison had quite a cleanup job on their hands.

"I did not take you for an artist."

"It's only putting pieces together to form a pattern." Marth moved his hand dismissively over the drawings for the mosaic windows. One pattern was recognizable as the Falchion sword, the other showed the Aum staff. "The central window-- the larger one-- will have the image of our parents. The left window is to represent Elice, and the other stands for me."

"But why do you not have yourselves depicted as you are?" Palla felt herself smile.

Marth laced his fingers under his chin and proceeded to look not at, but through her. Palla felt that smile fall away from her lips as the truth congealed in her brain.

_The sword, the staff-- these are the only reasons our lives were worth keeping._

Palla had seen her own princess in moments of grief and of doubt, but this was the first time she'd sensed such naked despair in the high commander. This went beyond mere melancholy, almost to the realm of self-hatred. It was unnerving, but Palla was well-schooled in projecting calm, and she waited out the uncomfortable silence.

Marth closed his eyes, and the set of his jaw eased slightly.

"I am sorry, Palla. I did not ask you here to trouble you." He began to file the papers in a new order, covering the window plans. "And I do not mean to pain you when I ask you to dredge through these memories of Michalis. It is only... if the second coming of Iote could end so...."

He did not speak the fear aloud, but Palla heard it within her own head anyway. She was not surprised when he then moved to dismiss her. Palla stood, but in truth _she_ was not done yet with Marth.

"Sire, if I may, I have a question in return for you."

"Ask away."

"Why did you keep Est from the battle?" Even before Palla and Catria made the decision to send Est back to Pales, the high commander made it clear that Est was not to be at the front. She carried messages from one wing of the League to the other, or stood guard over noncombatants like the Princess Maria. But after her first battle on the side of the League at the straits of Chiasmir, Est was denied a chance to prove herself before the warriors of other nations. That denial nourished the seeds of doubt in herself that Est hid beneath her bright smile, and she would come to Palla and Catria often, seeking reassurance that she was not a burden to them.

"I expected that," the prince replied. "The battle of Dolhr Keep was... an anomaly. Except for a castle raid, it makes no sense to send only a small group of the elite into battle. For one, less experienced units _do_ need to train, or they become a liability. So, why not allow Est to the fight?"

Palla knew better than to answer; she kept silence and waited for the prince's explanation.

"If every unit on the field is considered indispensable, the loss of one creates the impression that the entire war is already lost. Worse, a battle that could have been won may disintegrate into a half-dozen rescue missions-- all of which may ultimately fail. And so, we send into play units that, in the worst outcomes, can be let go. Will be let go." Marth traced the outline of the Aum Staff on the desk before him. "Forgive me if Est found it cruel. I thought it the better of poor options."

Palla had not expected such an answer. She'd wondered, she'd come up with possibilities, but the truth was not among them.

"Thank you, Prince Marth."

"Why thank me? As you implied, I wasted the abilities of a capable knight because I was afraid of the moment in which I would leave her behind."

There are no half-Whitewings or almost-Whitewings, Palla had told her sister. The warrior in Palla said that the prince was correct, that to protect-- to baby-- a knight was shameful. It was a disgrace to a Macedonian soldier to be treated thus. Better for Est to fight and fall than to have her coddled. But if Palla placed loyalty to her own commander over loyalty to her king, she likewise valued her sister's life above the standards of the knightly code of Macedon.

"Michalis would not have been afraid of that moment." She did not intend censure of the late king. She meant only to indicate to Marth that, no, all princes were _not_ cast in the same mold, that all celebrated heroes were not fated to follow the same disastrous course.

The calculating mask of the high commander of the Archanean League cracked in a bittersweet smile, leaving Palla to contemplate how very young seventeen was.

***End Chapter Two***

A/N: I introduced a couple of new months here: Snow Moon (November) and Storm Moon (March), plus the Alteans have Violet Moon (April) and Rose Moon (June). The "official" calendar of Archanea in my 'fics uses different names for those two months, as shall be seen.

Nicknames for Cain and Abel sourced from FE1 bios on Serenes Forest. Abel's FEDS redesign gave him a change of clothes, but oh well.

Inspiration for Abel/Tiki friendship comes courtesy of Edgemaster025. Inspiration for Palla/Abel in general comes from Shimizu Hitomi's fic "Still Waters."

Idea for artistic!Marth is my own; the NoA translation indicates that his education involved more than just "martial arts training," and royal houses employ visual art for dynastic/propaganda purposes more often than not.

Oh, and if you think Marth is a jerk for picking Tiki over Caeda, please check out his version of events in this fic's companion piece, "The End of Love."

More extensive notes (like which Peg Sister sings alto, and which soprano) can be found at my homepage as linked in my profile.

Next up, Chapter Three: The Drawing Board!


	3. The Drawing Board

**Love is Not A Victory March**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo, or any of the characters therein. **

**Warnings: Contains fantasy violence, death, swearing, and anti-dragon sentiments. There is, after all, a war going on.**

*******

**Part Three: The Drawing Board**

_Egg Moon, 605_

"The northwest corner of the keep is above the artillery closet. If we encounter enemy ballisticians, this is the most likely place for them." The high commander had his drawing board out again, and his audience saw their own lives marked out in the bold and graceful lines of his pen. The strange youth Xane had produced maps he claimed gave an accurate layout of Dolhr Keep, and Prince Marth based his battle plans on these maps for lack of anything else to go on. Thus spawned one of the most elaborate battle strategies Palla had seen devised. In place of elegance was a kind of clockwork mechanism, a battle composed of intricate sets of moves that would circle the tower.

Only sixteen warriors would comprise the initial assault on Dolhr Keep. Either they had mastery of the most powerful weapons in their class, like the Mercurius sword or the Excalibur tome, or they had proved themselves the strongest, the swiftest, the most hardy, the most agile. This time, the high commander violated his own rules and sent to battle a force consisting of the indispensable. He had reasons, of course; there was to be no holding back in this assault-- this time, the sixteen were chosen because they _could not_ be kept in reserve. Prince Marth divided his forces further into four balanced groups, each strong in physical attacks, magical attacks, mobility, defense, and healing power. So Palla and Catria were separated; Catria, along with Linde the Light Sage, Sedgar of Aurelis, and Beck the artilleryman, was assigned to the northwest entrance. Palla would enter the keep from the south, along with Abel, Princess Elice, and Prince Marth himself.

"If all goes well to that point, Abel, Tiki and I will breach the inner chamber. Should one of us not be present by that time, Ogma, Wolf, or Princess Minerva will substitute. We want Medeus to have as few targets as possible." Only the legendary weapons of the continent could cause serious harm to Medeus; Palla's silver lance and dragonpike would be like feathers against the dragon king. "When the throne room is breached, we will need at least two sentinels at the doorway for the remainder of the battle. Any soldier with sufficient strength and defense can serve this purpose. That means no mages, Linde."

"_Sages._" Linde was proud of her recent promotion.

"No sages, no bishops."

Once Marth had finished his overview of the strategy to be used inside the Keep, he moved to the equally complex contingency plans. Duke Hardin would have charge of the remainder of the army. His duties included launching the second round of attack if he deemed it necessary, ordering retreat if he deemed _that_ necessary, and protecting the Princess Nyna in either event. The Duke did not seem slighted to not be part of the Sixteen; rather, he showed pride that two of his own Knights of Aurelis were among the chosen. Wolf and Sedgar proved the supreme bowmen of the League, better even than the famed snipers of Archanea. Wolf rode as though he and his horse were one creature, and when she saw him fight, Palla found herself thinking of the heavenly Centaur, the immortal opponent of the Fire Dragon. If any bowman on the continent might ride into the lair of the most feared of all dragons, Wolf should be that man. That he had keeping of the sacred Parthia bow was natural.

Palla glanced from face to face-- at Wolf, impassive beneath his tousled hair, and his more expressive comrade Sedgar, who looked on the drawing board as though reading his own gravestone. Beside them were Barst and Ogma, mercenaries from Talys who sported hard faces since the death of their princess. Barst looked almost mutinous as he sat with his axe, dubbed Skullreaver, at his side. A far more relaxed pair were opposite them on the floor-- Merric and Linde, who both seemed attentive, even eager. For the sages, the defeat of Dark Pontifex Gharnef was the climax to the war. Their personal scores had been settled with Gharnef's fall, and neither appeared cowed by the idea of dealing with the Dragon King. Behind the sages, Bishop Lena and the newly promoted Bishop Elice sat; both bishops projected the serenity that Palla supposed was expected of clerics. Lena looked a little sad, perhaps, but that seemed to be her normal expression-- even in long-ago days at the Macedonian court, when King Michalis sought to marry her. Tiki sat at Elice's feet, resting happily against the "big sister" who'd given her life again. Past the bishops stood Beck of Grust, who displayed a total lack of concern over the battle plan and his role in it. Most of the Grustians of Palla's acquaintance were fatalists, and it seemed to her that Beck was no exception. Further down the tent were Cain and Abel; the former sat upright, with his hands clasped tight and a solemn look on his face, while the latter seemed entirely at ease _if_ one didn't notice the steady drumming of his long fingers. In the middle of all this were the Macedonians-- Princess Minerva, pensive and unusually still, and Catria, whose eyes flickered from the lines of the drawing board to the prince's face and back again. Fourteen companions, making sixteen once Palla counted herself and the prince. The fate of Archanea rested upon their shoulders.

The Sixteen were not the only ones in the council, of course.

"Sire, I must again protest the inclusion of Princess Elice in this battle. To risk both the heirs of Anri--"

"Malledeus, if we destroy the Shadow Dragon, the bloodline of Anri becomes irrelevant. If we cannot defeat Medeus with everything at our disposal, then Anri's legacy counted for less than we thought."

"Sire, at _least_ place yourself and the princess in different areas of the castle--"

"Elice and I stand together. Any other questions?"

They all had questions, Palla suspected, but the questions went unasked that evening. Prince Marth had covered all the essentials, down to a system of communication involving the mages and bishops sending up signals. Yet deeper questions, like how the high commander was coping with Caeda's death the day before, were not addressed.

"He's gone mad," she heard Sedgar say to Wolf as the Aurelians departed for their own tent. "_Sixteen_? Split four ways? We'll _die_." Palla strained to hear Wolf's reply, but couldn't make it out.

The men from Talys walked by next, their weapons gleaming as they passed Palla, deep in quiet conversation. Then came Beck, whistling tunelessly with his hands in his pockets. Palla waited for her sister, who was chatting with Abel and Cain. After several minutes she decided she might as well join them. Even as she approached, Cain was bidding the others goodnight.

"Well, Catria, I'll have my hands full with your princess tomorrow. In between her, Ogma, and Barst, I think we can put up a fair fight."

Palla murmured a goodnight as Cain left them. She then turned to Abel.

"How likely are we to succeed?" The bluntness of her question seemed to startle Abel, but he had a ready reply.

"Honestly? Medeus went down last time to a farm boy with an iron will and a holy sword. We've got the sword now, and I think our prince is a match for old Anri when it comes to nerve. And we've got Tiki, and we've got your princess and her Hauteclere, _and_ we have Gradivus and all the other holy weapons. Even better, Medeus isn't strong enough to come out of his rat's hole, and without the Aum he never will be. It sounds like he was counting on the Aum to give him strength, and he doesn't have that as a fallback now. We won't lose the battle tomorrow. We may lose some good people."

Neither Palla nor Catria contradicted him there; the disasters yesterday were proof enough that no one was invincible. But the bearer of Gradivus, one of the cornerstones of Prince Marth's strategy, was satisfied with his role, so who were Palla and Catria to be hesitant? Neither of them were expected to go in and face Medeus personally, after all.

Abel shook his head.

"Ah, Palla. You know as well as I that the surest way to not come back from a battle is to make up your mind that you won't. Let's finish up this conversation tomorrow evening, then?"

"Cain says that Prince Marth's intuition and logic have gotten us all this far, and he's not about to start doubting his lord now," reported Catria once they wished Abel goodnight.

"I don't doubt him," said Palla. "I don't really see another way in besides flooding as many entrances as possible. And I do see his point that sending in anyone who isn't at the top of their class is definitely sending them to die." Take the master swordsman Navarre-- as good as he was, he came behind Ogma in physical strength. That earned Ogma a place on the Sixteen, and custody of Mercurius, and set Navarre on the first round of planned reinforcements. Ogma was more likely to sustain a mage-dragon's mauling, and mage-dragons were assuredly waiting for them, so Ogma went in first. As Cain said, there was logic in the prince's tactics.

***

In the gray light before dawn, the Sixteen made their way down from the encampment. Catria and Palla took a brief flight with their beloved commander; three soared as one in their familiar triangle. All too soon, Catria banked to the west, Princess Minerva to the east, and Palla continued south to scout out the gates and await the rest of her squad.

"Fare well, sister..." Palla whispered. If ever she'd imagined the final battle, she would have expected to be at Catria's side. Instead, Prince Marth set them at opposite ends of a vast labyrinth. If Catria fell, Palla might not witness it, would never be able to tell Est exactly what happened to their middle sister. There was a very real chance, too, that neither of them would survive this day, and that they might fall separately was a cruel and heartbreaking thing to contemplate. When Abel drew up beside her on Skylark, Palla had a request for him.

"Abel... if something should happen to me, will you be the one to tell Est?" His eyes, distinctly green even in the low light, widened noticeably, and Palla added, "I know it is properly Prince Marth's duty, or that of my princess, but I think Est would take the news best from you."

"Not Catria?"

"Catria may not be with me." Abel should understand what went unspoken, surely.

"I should hate to be the herald for that message," he said after several seconds. "And I think Est should hate _me_ forever for it."

"Please, Abel. If you are with me, if you should see... just tell her."

"I will, Palla," he said at last. "And if I don't come out of that throne room alive, you make up a good story for Cain. Don't tell him Medeus gobbled me up in one go as a first course."

"I'll... try."

_If you are with me_... Small treacherous voices in her heart whispered, "If you die here, at least you will be at his side. If he falls, it will be at _your_ side." Such a silly thing to waste a thought on, and there wasn't any time left for wasted thoughts. The high commander and his sister had arrived. They had both dressed splendidly for the battle; Princess Elice wore her coronet instead of a miter, and Prince Marth wore a gold-embroidered tunic and a cloak lined with violet silk. They looked like illustrations from an Altean romance, and Palla, in her faded headband and dented armor, wondered at them as she made her report.

"The southwest gate is open, but a large mage-dragon is lurking just beyond it, with more enemies to follow. The gate facing due south is locked."

The royal siblings exchanged glances.

"The other gates are open as well," the prince said with a tinge of exasperation. "It appears Medeus intends a trap."

"We await your direction, sire," Abel said quickly.

"We have a master key," Marth replied, and Elice jingled the collection of keys at her belt. "We'll take the south-facing gate. The other units will proceed according to plan."

Palla saluted in the Macedonian fashion. Her hands, her heart, her lance, and her will belonged to her commanding officer. Whether this was a trap or not, Palla would serve as ordered.

The southern gate was vast and solid, a breathtaking testament to the metalworking skill of the ancient race. Once opened, a squad of knights on horseback might have charged through, shoulder to shoulder. Of course, Palla thought, this was built by dragons, for dragons. Megaera could sail through the doorways with wings fully stretched. Deep in the realm of the dragon-kin, almost nothing was to scale for humans. The locks of this gate were high enough from the floor that Princess Elice, a tall woman, would have to stand a-tiptoe to reach them.

Even as Elice reached for her keys, something else happened that went outside the scope of Prince Marth's plans. The arrival of Gotoh, the legendary White Sage who created the Starlight tome, was a gift, but while Palla was grateful for the assistance she wished Lord Gotoh had decided to lend them help before now. One more on their side in the prior battle might have saved a life--

Megaera and Skylark nearly bolted. Princess Elice covered her ears. Palla, struggling to control her mount, thought her heart might stop. She never had heard anything as terrible as the roar of an earth dragon. It sent quakes through every bone in her body, set her teeth to chattering. Her reaction to Medeus' greeting was so overwhelming that she didn't truly hear the threats the Dragon King made.

"It seems we've lost the element of surprise."

Abel's lips quirked upward at his commander's dry humor. Palla smothered her own shaky smile behind her hand.

"Go on, Elice." And with this soft, understated command, Prince Marth initiated the final battle of the War of Darkness. Princess Elice unlocked the gate of the southern entrance to the keep. The ancient, massive gates creaked as Elice and the White Sage pulled them open; to Palla's ears, the creak was unbearably loud. But, as the prince had said, the element of surprise was already lost.

Skylark lunged forward, and the stones rang then with Abel's battle cry. Palla and Megaera followed him through in the space of a heartbeat, dragon and rider screaming as one. A third cry sounded behind them as Prince Marth let every fiend in left in Dolhr know where to find him.

The great mechanism of Marth's battle plan ground along as though each motion were foreordained. A paladin, a demon-wyrm, an enemy ballistician went down in a hail of strikes. Palla, Abel, and Marth took their own share of hits, but with Elice and the White Sage on hand to heal them, the trio carved a path northward up the keep. Palla heard, though could not see, the other squads fighting from different corners of the maze. She heard the sound of the Aura spell, the high-pitched roar of Tiki in her dragon-form, the whistle of ballista fire. Falchion shone with the blue-white dazzle of the brightest stars; with each blow, Marth illuminated the black corridors of the dragons' lair. The darkness was beyond anything Palla ever had seen or sensed-- not simply the absence of light, the darkness of Dolhr seemed a thing in itself. It practically had its own scent. Yet even this active, crawling darkness was subdued by the Blade of Light.

Beyond the darkness, the place was one of unspeakable filth. Human bones littered the floor, human skulls were literally incorporated into the walls as decoration. Tiki and old Bantu might seem almost human, but the dragons of Dolhr were turning out to be every bit as vile as the legends said. Palla felt no pity for the demon-wyrm that Abel speared through the throat, even as she was beyond feeling remorse over the human opponents-- a paladin and a dragoon-- that she killed in the corridor. Anyone who could take the side of Dolhr in _this_ place, of all places, had given up their human birthright as far as Palla was concerned. She and Abel struck fast and struck hard, with hearts untroubled by mercy. They passed in tandem through the cavernous tunnel-- Palla and Megaera soaring above, Abel and Skylark galloping below. Silver lance and Gradivus landed blows in synchrony; for a moment, Palla almost imagined it a dance.

"Keep to the western wall!" It was the steel-edged voice of her princess, issuing from deeper in the labyrinth. "Snipers lurk in the inner chamber."

Palla banked to the left; the walls of the inner keep sported gaping holes through which arrows, javelins, or a hand axe might sail; they were arranged in a pattern that suggested jagged teeth. Palla was vulnerable to the snipers, while Minerva, protected by Iote's Shield, could draw close and fling her own weapons into the throne room.

"Medeus stands at the southern end of the chamber," the princess shouted down. "His back is to a solid wall. We have no choice but to enter from the north door."

"North door to north door." Sounds echoed strangely in the keep. Palla heard Prince Marth speak as clearly as though he stood next to her, while in fact he stood many feet below. She did not understand him, though, and took it for another strange piece of mid-battle humor.

_If he falls, it will be at my side._

That guilty thought sustained her until the turning point of the battle-- Abel, Marth, and Tiki disappearing into the throne room, even as Catria came charging up the western corridor to the inner keep. Palla first thought she dreamed the sight-- dragon and rider, flying through the inside of a castle so vast that Alecto's wings cleared the walls on either side. She felt a moment of odd clarity, a sudden stillness and silence in the midst of this fantastic battle. And then Catria's voice ricocheted through the halls, vibrant and real and blessedly alive.

"Damn door locked me inside. Thank the Gods that Beck had a key on him." Her hair was singed and her headband askew, and some of the blood on her armor was Catria's own, but she had survived. Palla swallowed the urge to take her sister by the shoulders and kiss her. She offered instead a nod and a small smile as Catria dismounted. Catria said then, "Well, we all survived. Is everybody else all right?"

So it seemed; others were rounding the corners now-- Barst, his axe dipped in crimson, and Wolf, the sages, and Bishop Lena. Wolf galloped up to them; Palla thought again of the mythical Centaur at the sight of the horseman. He was impossibly handsome, even in the middle of the most filthy battle they had ever lived. Wolf gave his succinct report.

"The eastern chambers are cleared; we sealed the doors behind us."

"The southern gate is open," Palla said in return. "Catria, what of the west?"

"Bad." Catria exhaled in a puff, blowing a stray lock of hair away from her face. "We have Cain, Ogma, and Sedgar at the west gate, but mages keep coming in from below. Beck jammed up the ramp so the artillery can't get up here. They must all live somewhere in the dungeons."

"I think those four should be able to handle any problems...." Palla tallied the numbers in her head. Yes, seventeen, including the mysterious Gotoh. Catria was right-- so far, they all had survived. It occurred to Palla that she'd lost track of the minutes passed since Abel and the others breached the throne room. She looked from face to face and saw everyone, save perhaps the inscrutable Wolf, was on edge. The sense that something _tremendous_ lay beyond those walls was inescapable. The ancient keep was so vast and solid that they didn't truly feel the shaking every time Medeus shifted his feet, but Palla's heart was aware of it nonetheless. The young Pegasus knight she'd once been would have been brought to her knees by the knowledge, but Palla the White held fast at the gate, with lance in steady hands.

"No one's going to get past us," Linde said through flashing teeth. They did indeed form a barrier across the entrance-- axes, lances, magic and the Parthia bow. Above them, Minerva circled the walls of the inner chamber, on guard against mage or sniper reinforcements.

The shriek of a young dragon echoed around them.

"Tiki," whispered Catria. "I hope she remembered not to use the Firestone."

"I think she's fine," replied Palla. "That's just the sound of her normal attack."

"Enemies to the south!" Minerva's voice rang out against the towering walls. "Dragoons and cavaliers. Barst, Wolf, intercept them before they can reach the mages."

"_Sages_," muttered Linde. She and Merric exchanged irritated glances as Wolf charged away, Parthia in hand.

"I can take down a dragoon as easily as any horseman," Merric said, a gleam of competition in his eyes.

"Let's give them a taste of Aura." Linde formed a light-orb at her finger tips. Catria snickered aloud as Palla bit back a smile. Then, a torrent of sound stopped them all in their places. If the warning roar of Medeus was terrible, his attack sent ice coursing through Palla's veins. A strange bronze light flickered through the windows of the inner keep, and a foul stench drifted over them. Palla thought she heard Abel's shout, thought she heard the unearthly song of Gradivus as the holy lance flew through the air. Medeus sounded again, and Palla realized that the bronze flames were indeed the deadly breath of the Earth Dragon.

"Abel..."

The windows of the keep flooded with a brilliant glow, as though the brightest star of the heavens had burst forth within the chamber. Palla saw her sister's features disappear in the light. Then a third roar as Medeus attacked again, followed seconds later by another flash of blue-white radiance. Palla had to close her eyes against the light, but even so, she couldn't shut it out. The light wasn't painful, but it was almost too beautiful to bear. As the light faded, sounds filled Palla's ears and vibrated through her breastbone. Not a roar this time, but a howl, followed by speech so deep and guttural that Palla couldn't understand it. Then, a still more terrible sound, like the earth itself was cracking open and crumbling around them.

"Dear gods, what's happening in there?" Catria's eyes seemed painfully wide.

"I don't know." Palla's response was so drowned out by the chaos that she couldn't hear her own words.

"Maybe we should-- Palla, get out of the way!"

The great black horse, decked in the colors of Altea, shot through the doorway like a Pachyderm ballista. Both horse and trappings were pale with dust, as was the rider. Pale with dust, and yet stained with red so dark it was nearly black.

"Victory," was all he could say, and he slipped to the ground, still graceful in spite of his dire wounds. The Gradivus clattered to the floor, leaving a foul arc of blood upon the stones. Palla and Catria ignored it; they both took hold of Abel, easing him into a better position. Abel coughed, bringing up a crimson froth. His eyes had already turned glassy. "Long... live... Altea."

It was just like her nightmares. Palla found herself unable to speak, even as Catria was calling out Abel's name to rouse him from stupor. _There is nothing I _can_ do,_ Palla thought. There was no action she might take to defend Abel, and no way to avenge him. The great calamity had already happened, there in the innermost chamber. Palla could only wipe the blood from Abel's cheek with her sleeve, could only press her fingers into the palm of Abel's hand, hoping for a response....

But Bishop Lena was there, Recover staff in hand. Palla sat motionless while Lena ministered to the paladin; even the vicious wounds of the Shadow Dragon were within Lena's power to heal. Within minutes, Abel was sitting up, breathing normally, a warm light back in his eyes. Palla had seen this magic many times, of course, but here in the palpable evil of Dolhr, Lena's divine gifts seemed especially holy, especially merciful.

"Thank you, Lena," she whispered. The bishop simply bowed her head in acknowledgment.

"Tiki?" Abel asked as he came back to himself.

"Palla," she corrected him.

"Palla?" He reached out to touch her hair, yet stopped midway. "Tiki? Prince Mar-- where are they?"

Palla and Catria exchanged glances. _You tell him,_ Catria communicated with her eyes.

"You were the only one to come from the throne room," Palla said slowly. Even now, Barst and Merric worked to clear fallen rock from the doorway. And Abel turned pale, as though the remainder of his blood had run out of him. He pushed away Palla's hand-- gentle yet firm-- and rushed to join his brothers-at-arms in clearing the entrance to the throne room. With three sets of hands-- four, as Cain arrived at the scene-- they soon had the entrance free.

Abel plunged back into the inner sanctum of Medeus without hesitation. Cain followed, as did Elice. Palla, though, balked at the doorway. She felt as though her every hair stood on end with evil energy. _This is how Enyo felt when she sensed archers_, Palla thought. She steeled herself, and-- with Catria at her back-- stepped into the true dragons' lair. The tower now was topless; the ceiling above the throne of Medeus had caved in. The fallen lay in the sunlight, all of them as dolls compared with the mountainous shape of the dragon king. The light picked out some details in the billows of dust: dragon-blood and dragon-scales, the gleam of a silver bow, the jewel in the hilt of the Falchion blade. In the middle of it all stood a little manakete girl, staring openmouthed at the sudden appearance of the sky. Tiki, for once, was lost for words.

***

"Medeus went for me first," Abel explained to the company that evening, when the lances and staves were put away, replaced by skewers of meat and cups of wine. "He didn't even touch me, and I poked him good with the Gradivus. Then he struck at me again... ow." Abel rubbed theatrically at his chest and shoulder. Lena had healed him to the best of her abilities, but the scars of the Shadow Dragon's attack might be with Abel for life.

Palla forced a smile at Abel's jest; she had the strangest impulse to likewise run her fingers over Abel's dragon-burnt shoulder.

"His aim was horrible," Abel said of the greatest evil in Archanea. "I guess it was true about him not being completely resurrected. He only connected with us, what, one time in three? Tiki was better than that in her first battle." He ruffled the little dragon-girl's hair as he spoke. Tiki squealed with delight and turned her head so that Abel was scratching her strange pointed ears.

"Mar-Mar wasn't hurt by Mediuth until after Mediuth died," Tiki agreed once her ears were properly scratched. On top of her other strange ways of speaking, Tiki had a bit of a lisp. "His big tail went out like _this._" And they all had to scatter while Tiki transformed into her divine-dragon self to give them all a better idea of what damage a dragon's tail might do.

***

Medeus literally brought down the castle, or at least the center of it, in his death-agony. The prince of Altea lay in the rubble alongside his adversary, half-buried by the Shadow Dragon's tail. Abel and Cain both sprinted to the side of their lord; a sickened look crossed Abel's face.

"Uh-oh," said Catria.

Princess Elice picked up her trailing robes and dashed across the rock-strewn floor to aid her brother. Palla watched Elice apply the Recover staff, even as Cain and Abel began to grapple with the dragon's tail. It took long minutes and the addition of Merric to free the prince, whereupon Abel and Cain lifted Marth from the rubble. In spite of the great tension in their faces, Palla noticed their movements were surprisingly gentle. They laid Marth down in an uncluttered space on the floor; the prince's head rested in Elice's lap, leaving dark stains upon her skirt.

"He's not getting up."

Palla heard a note of hysteria in Catria's voice. Still, that was normal, as Catria always did need to vent after a battle. Palla herself felt oddly calm. This battle was over, and with it perhaps, at last, the war. If Prince Marth still lived, he was safest in his sister's care. If the prince were lost, his mission was at least fulfilled. Not wishing to stare at the scene like a voyeur, Palla let her attention wander from Abel and Elice and Cain. She looked up at the fragment of pure blue sky above them, and she gazed upon the walls, at the vast and barbarous murals across the walls of the throne room. The murals showed a dragon's ideal world, a nightmare for humans. Dragons rampant, dragons triumphant, with human limbs dangling from their mouths, human bodies crushed underfoot. Palla looked from the image of a great Earth Dragon with humans spilling from his jaws, to the open mouth and lolling tongue of Medeus. He was the same as any dead dragon left on a battlefield, thought Palla, just on an appalling scale. She'd seen that dumbstruck expression on the spent faces of many a dragoon's mount.

"Thank the gods," Catria breathed. Palla saw then that Prince Marth was sitting up. Cain helped the commander to his feet, and Abel handed the prince back the Falchion. The beautiful blade was coated in filth-- the greenish-black blood of an Earth Dragon. By now, the remainder of the Sixteen-- all of them thankfully standing-- and the White Sage and the reserve forces were flooding in to the throne room. Palla looked from face to face, at the stunned, the hopeful, the jubilant, and the weary. The last year... no, the last five years... no, far more than that-- had culminated in this. Every maneuver and exercise, every deal and rescue, every betrayal and sacrifice, came down to blood on a sword and the swollen tongue of a dead _beast_. Small wonder so many of them looked as though they walked in a dream.

The League of Archanea pressed around their commander in an ever-tighter circle of congratulations, yet no one seemed quite willing to actually approach the Starlord, the slayer of dragons. Prince Marth bridged the gap himself. Still unsteady on his feet, the prince placed one hand on Tiki's small head, and the other on Abel's shoulder. Not the Sixteen, then, but the Three: those who faced the Shadow Dragon and lived to celebrate the victory. Tiki shrieked in joy, but Palla studied Abel's face-- how his initial look of surprise gave way to a burst of pride, which in turn gave way to the awed realization of where he stood, and why. Palla felt herself on the other side of that gulf, and clapped and cheered all the louder to heal that sudden sense of separation.

"My friends," Prince Marth began, but his voice failed him. He managed a barely audible "thank you" before shaking his head and offering his arm to Elice, who stood radiant with pride beside her younger brother. The crowd of warriors parted so that the royal siblings could pass; the White Sage walked a pace behind them. Abel lifted Tiki onto his shoulders and followed them out.

Catria had both hands pressed to her chest as though she couldn't contain her joy.

"Oh..." she said, then her head snapped up, eyes blazing with something beyond battle-spirit. "It's over! Great gods, it's done and we can go home."

"We can join with Est and go home," agreed Palla. Home, wherever that was. She'd once stated her home was the sky around her commander; if Minerva returned to Macedon to rule, the Whitewings would follow.

"Fly to Pales, collect Est, and get the _hell_ out of here!" The jubilation in Catria's voice turned to a curse before she finished the sentence. The hair-raising sensation of evil was taking over again, Palla thought. She glanced at Medeus to make sure that his half-closed eyes showed no life. She was not alone there; many of the warriors were now backing away from the dead dragon, weapons at the ready in case Medeus wasn't _quite_ so dead. Few faces smiled now. Perhaps it was the absence of the Starlord, or perhaps the Falchion truly had kept shadows at bay. The sense of desolation that pervaded Dolhr was overpowering here.

A gust of wind howled across the hole in the tower roof. Palla stared up at the vast distance between herself at that patch of sky. They were all as ants in the eyes of the dragonkin, Palla thought. Nothing more than a swarm of mindless insects. This tower was built to last until the end of the world; its king expected his Dolhr empire to stand for all time. And there Medeus lay, slain at the hand of one of these small and fragile insects, whose seventeen years of life were a second in dragon-time. It was good, and it was necessary, and yet all Palla felt in that moment was the weight of millennia, the raging conflict between humans and dragonkin distilled into that instant and poured down the broken tower. Palla's soul felt as dirtied as her armor. She looked to her sister for support, but Catria's head was down now, and she seemed to be staring at the dark stains in the rubble.

"Let us leave this place." Cain's voice, amplified by the chamber walls, echoed back at them like the voice of a god.

"These people," Lena said, indicating the dead sniper and other humans who lay by the throne of their wyrm-lord. "Surely we cannot leave them here."

Prince Marth demanded that the League treat the corpses of their enemies with respect. The enemy dead were turned over to their own comrades if possible, and if not were buried properly by the League. They should do it, they _must _do it, and yet Palla wanted nothing more than to take Megaera and fly clear through the shattered roof and head as far away as possible.

Merric placed a hand on Lena's shoulder.

"We will do something," he said, and even his soft voice answered itself in an echo. "But for now, we all need a respite from this place and its... demons."

Linde summoned an orb of light to serve as a brave candle, and the remainder of the Archanean League fell in behind her in a solemn procession. Catria joined them, but Palla hung behind. She had no desire to take another trip through those dragon-sized halls; once the last straggler was out, she and Megaera would take to the skies. So it was that Palla witnessed the final blow struck in the War of Darkness. Wolf, stolid as ever, marked the occasion in his own way. The horseman waited until the crowd had passed him by, then drew the Parthia and fired one shot from the holy bow into the eye of Medeus.

"For Aurelis!" And he galloped away.

***

That night, when there was no meat left on the skewers nor wine in the cups, Abel stretched out on the tent cushions. From his long legs to the droop of his shaggy head, Abel radiated a sense of drowsy contentment, but beneath his eyelashes, Palla saw a flash of something keen and sharp.

"He screamed at me to go," Abel said, as casually as though this were a mundane conversation on their supper or the moonlight. "I was the closest one to the door, and of course I was mounted. Tiki had wings. When the tower caved in, I didn't think he had much of a chance."

"Ah." It was a meaningless response, intended simply to keep him talking.

"I'd like to say that was the hardest order I've ever had to follow, but...." Abel closed his eyes and tipped his head back; his serene expression gave way to something pained. "I wanted to live. I liked the idea of coming home. I want to go home."

"Mm." Palla felt her own head grow heavy; as battles went, the Battle of Dolhr Keep was not the longest Palla had endured, but its exhilaration and terror had drained her. She was slipping to the borders of sleep, and only half-noticed when Abel stood and walked to the doorflap of the tent. He held the flap open and stared outward, strange lights and colors playing across his features.

"You must see this, Palla."

She joined him at the door. The opening to the tent faced Dolhr Keep, but the ruined tower was almost unfamiliar to her now. Now, the tower seemed enchanted. Linde and Merric sent off blasts of Aura and Starlight respectively, cleansing the Shadow Dragon's citadel with pure, pure light.

"Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?" Abel asked her softly. It was so good to hear his voice steady and strong again.

"Never," said Palla. Not the light displays when Princess Maria was born, not the spectacle for Michalis' coronation, not even the celebrations on the reclamation of Altea were as grand, as lovely, as painful as this moment.

"Victory," Abel whispered. Not the choked cry of a man expending his final breath, not this time. This was something inexpressibly sweet.

"Victory," echoed Palla. Light spilled forth from the shattered keep of Dolhr, reaching up to the stars, reaching out to her and Abel, filling in the space between them.

***End Chapter Three***

Author's Notes: Well, that was the longest chapter to date, and also the reason why this story is not presented in chronological order.

My take on minor characters, especially Barst and Sedgar, actually factors in to their post-_Shadow Dragon_ fates and is not lol!random.

Skullreaver (Barst's pet axe) comes courtesy of Edgemaster025.

Stay tuned for the fourth and final installment, "Pieces of Glass."


	4. Pieces of Glass

"**Love is Not A Victory March"**

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon**_**, **_**Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo**_**, or any of the characters therein. **

**Warning: Up to now, this story has followed the basic plot of **_**Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon**_**. This chapter throws the canon timeline out the window. If you wish to, you might want to read this work's companion piece, "The End of Love," for background. Otherwise, hold on tight. Oh yes, there are pairings, but they are a surprise.  
**

*******

**Part Four: Pieces of Glass**

_Golden Moon, 605_

Light filtered down through the new windows of the Great Hall of Castle Altea, casting jewel-like sparkles over the celebration. King Cornelius and Queen Liza presided over the wedding-- in portrait form, at least-- flanked by the Aum Staff and Falchion. There was more to the window than that, though; many small medallions around the border honored those who fought and those who died in the War of Darkness. Palla noted a red bull and a black panther, and a coyote guarding the Lea of Aurelis. There was a red dragon for her commander, and a white dragon for Tiki. A pair of crossed swords, with the buildings of Port Warren in the background, honored two soldiers who fell defending that port. And there, to the right of the Falchion, was something to make Palla start in her chair-- a beautiful Falcoknight, Wing Spear in hand, long hair trailing behind her in the wind. Palla blinked. Yes, the little golden horn of the Falcon Pegasus was still there, glittering in the window. Palla felt a burning in her chest as she looked upon this tiny symbol that a young knight named Caeda of Talys hadn't truly vanished from the pages of history. Someone remembered Caeda's dreams, and made them a reality in the other-world formed by these pieces of glass, so that generations of Alteans might see what should have been.

"Look! It's our Triangle Attack."

"Shh, Catria." Palla did crane her head to see the medallion her sister pointed to, but in truth her eyes were blurred with tears.

"Those are our pegasi," was Catria's good-natured complaint. "Honestly, I have a_ dragon_ now...."

"Est doesn't."

"Well, she needs to catch up with us, then!"

***

_Mead Moon, 605_

At the last village on the road to Pales, an handful of the League stumbled into a tavern to burn off the remainder of their volatile spirits before they reentered polite company. It said something of the prevailing mood that few of their leaders were present-- not Prince Marth, or Duke Hardin, or Queen Minerva, and certainly not Princess Nyna. This was a final fling for the rest of them, a final opportunity for the nobles to drink with the commons, the Dracoknights to dance with the snipers. There also was music. Pretty Altean ballads and Grustian drinking songs mingled with Archanean tunes that struck Palla as decadent.

Abel had his lute along, but it wanted tuning, and as he worked on it, Palla asked him many of the trivial questions that had been floating in her head for many months now.

"Why is the color of Altea blue?"

"I don't rightly know," he said, and the corner of his mouth turned up in a quizzical smile. "I believe it has something to do with all the water. You could ask Prince Marth though-- he has the whole history of our land committed to memory. I do know why Talys has a blue banner, though. Caeda told us it comes from some plant her father's clan used to paint themselves with in battle before unification."

"Aurelis is green and gold, and Grust black and silver," Palla said. "Gra is... I don't recall."

"Red," Abel said, a trace of disgust behind the word. "Red, like drying blood, the traitors."

Palla smiled at the reflexive contempt of a patriotic Altean. With the battle behind them, even these hatreds, bitter as a rift between sisters, might one day mend.

"Do you know why Macedon's color is red?"

"No. You've a lot of redheads in your country."

That was a fact, Palla reflected. Bishop Lena and her brother, the Macedonian royals... yes, it was a common color. But that wasn't the reason at all.

"In the days of enslavement under Dolhr, our people were treated as animals. Blood was all we had to remind us that we Macedonians were human."

"But ani-- ah, yes. As opposed to dragon's blood." He looked up from his lute, and that charmingly perplexed smile returned as his eyes met hers. "Always so somber, Palla."

And he touched her cheek with the back of his fingers.

"We can smile now."

"You always have," she said, and was alarmed by the tremor in her voice.

"We all have our vices," he said lightly.

And yet, Palla wasn't the only one prone to inappropriate moments of gravity that evening. Gaiety turned to something less so, and the music followed along with the change. Draug's friend Roger had enough drink in him to get up and sing "Sentry at the Grusthold," a lament from the dark days a century ago when the Dolhr Empire threatened to consume Archanea. Roger turned out to have a fine tenor voice, and by the time he was finished, Palla saw tears streaming from General Lorenz's good eye.

This inspired Catria, who'd been off chatting with Cain half the evening, to pull something truly grim out of the Macedonian songbook. "Blow, Winds of Macedon" was dear enough to the hearts of the people to be an unofficial anthem, but there were fewer songs less suited to light entertainment. But Catria enlisted Abel as her co-conspirator, and Palla simply shook her head and decided that if drink and dance didn't relieve the more troubled stirrings of the heart, a thorough catharsis just might.

Palla missed the sharp, angular sound of the Macedonian lyre, but even the more melodious Altean lute conveyed the haunting nature of the tune. The lyrics she and Catria used were from the translation into standard Archanean, more literal and less poetic than the Macedonian original. Still, they were crudely effective. Palla and her sister sent their voices up together as they invoked the wind deities of Macedon to bear down upon the stone temples of the rich and the hovels of the slaves, to disturb the men in chains and the bones of the dragon overlords in equal measure.

_Blow upon the graves of the girls unwed_

_Blow through the cities of the royal dead_

_For all of us, the wind is calling_

They received applause, but after that all but the extremely drunk found an excuse to go back to their rooms. Palla wondered later if that weren't Catria's motive. Abel, though, was inclined to keep playing as long as there were anyone to hear it. He began to play the charming Altean tune, "In the Wind and the Light," as a counter to the hostile winds of Macedon.

"Blast!" The lowest string on his lute had snapped. Abel seemed abnormally put out by this, and Palla hastened to soothe him.

"Oh, it's fine. We'll be in Pales in another day, and I'm sure you can have that repaired."

"Yes, I suppose so," he said, and his face smoothed out to its regular pleasant calm. "It will be strange, after all this, to go back to a life where all the little things are possible."

Repairing the lute would have to wait until after the final procession. The Great Parade, Abel called it with an arched brow-- the victory march to the gates of Millennium Palace.

From her vantage point atop Megaera, Palla had a splendid view of the choked streets of the capital. It appeared to her as a opened hive of bees, every available space packed with thousands upon thousands of bodies. The noise was, in its own way, as incredible as the death-cries of the Dragon King. Palla was glad to be a little above it, and glad too that she at least had the advantage of height and could actually see their planned destination. At the dais in front of the Palace stood the most distinguished guests, assembled to acclaim Princess Nyna as their true Queen. The paladin Midia and her handsome hero Astram waited there along with Bishop Boah and the rest of the Archanea garrison. Palla searched for some glimpse of a young Pegasus Knight, but Est's small stature kept her hidden.

Everything went smoothly enough at first. Nyna and her victorious host were pelted with flowers. The Princess, in her finest gown, seemed more a beautiful doll than a living woman, and in the midst of this cross-section of the Archanean citizenry, Nyna's great commander looked absurdly young to be the focal point of so much attention. Palla shook her head, feeling more than a little dazed. Had the war truly been waged by a _child_ on behalf of this doll-princess? No, of course not-- there was so much more to this struggle than just those two, and more stories than just those of Nyna and Marth. They all were proof of it, from noble old Lorenz down to tiny Princess Maria. This war was fought for _all_ Archanea, not just the Holy Kingdom. This was was for Altea _and_ Aurelis, for Talys and Grust and Macedon. In the end, it was even for the dragonkin themselves-- there, after all, were Tiki and her Uncle Bantu, walking on two feet alongside the humans, not to mention--

"Jake!" The high-pitched voice of a girl rose above the clamor. "Jake!"

"Anna!" The young artilleryman broke from his place in the line, leaving his ballista there in the street. He leapt into the crowd, cutting through the crush of bodies with his shoulder, in search of the girl's bobbing red head and flailing hand. To Palla, it was like watching a dolphin swim against the current to its frolicking mate. Jake won the fight; he lifted the girl up into the air and whirled her around.

"That girl... I've seen her before," gasped Catria. "In... Altea?"

Palla said nothing, though privately she could have sworn she'd seen the girl herself-- in the wastes of Dolhr.

The reunion of Jake and Anna broke the solemnity of the procession. The crowd surged forward, calling out individual names in search their brothers, their sisters, their lovers, their children. The march stopped entirely, and Palla had to order Megaera to flap in place while the street below them turned to madness. Even the knights upon the dais lost their composure-- Tomas, the shy young archer, flung himself at Sedgar of Aurelis, and Palla realized with a shock that the two were likely brothers.

One particular voice, though, cut through the chaos with heart-stopping clarity.

"Abel!" Like the ringing of a silver bell. "Abel!"

Est, unmistakable even in her Archanean dress uniform. Palla followed the sight, and the sound, as her sister jumped down from the dais and began a frantic run toward the Altean paladins. Palla had a split-second gory vision of Est spooking the horses, of Est being trampled by the vicious destriers. But Palla kept her eyes open, and the false premonition yielded to a series of strange, static images, as though each second of Est's run were captured separately. Abel, for his part, stepped down from Skylark only seconds before Est plowed into him in a flurry of arms and legs. His own arms closed around Est in a motion that looked purely reflexive. And yet, they kept the position-- Est's hands clasped at the small of Abel's back, Est's head tucked neatly beneath Abel's chin. Palla watched as her heart measured out seconds that stretched into a solid minute. There was nothing of the Black Panther in Abel now; his expression as he held Est held only tenderness: the desire to cherish, to protect, to love. Surely, thought Palla, that was the way to regard one's self-appointed protégée? With the love of an elder brother, of a father?

Est fairly dragged Abel back to the apartments she'd used during her stay in Pales. Catria and Palla walked three paces behind them, Est's chatter filling their ears. Est hadn't been bored; in fact, she'd learned a great deal. Lady Midia was so strong and brave and generous, and Sir Astram was actually very nice once you got to know him, and Tomas didn't have a lot to say but was so _very_ sweet and gentle...

"And did you know he's really Sedgar's _brother_?" Est finished breathlessly, her eyes seeming as large as saucers.

"I think we figured that out today," said Catria.

"That's right, Est," Abel said. "Even big, bad Sedgar has a kind heart inside. He wanted his little brother to be safe..."

But Est had already forgotten about Tomas, and was staring up at Abel with those huge eyes. She wanted to hear now what _he_ had been up to while she kicked her heels in Pales. The story took awhile to tell, and while Abel did most of that telling, Palla and Catria each added their own contributions. When not speaking, Palla watched her youngest sister as though seeing her anew. She noted how Est gasped at the tense and dramatic moments, how she paled while hearing of the battle with Gharnef, how her eyes filled with genuine tears when Catria gave the account of Caeda's death. All the reactions were genuine-- genuine, spontaneous, and completely without the strangling sense of self-consciousness that marked so many of Palla's interactions with her comrades and superiors. She would make a good knight, Palla thought, but a terrible spy.

When Abel reached the end of the story, the part where Merric and Linde cleaned up the nasty dragon's filthy castle, fresh tears trickled down Est's cheeks.

"There." And Abel flicked some of the tears away with those long and slender fingers. "It was a happy ending, you see? Mostly happy," he amended, in honor of Caeda and the other fallen.

"I have to get something." Est bolted away to rummage around in the little bag embroidered with a pegasus that lay atop her bed. Palla remembered well the hours she'd spent creating that picture out of a spool of thread, hours taken away from training and practice, and all for the look in Est's eyes when she was given the present. She looked then to Abel, at the curiosity writ plain on his face. Est, in her spontaneity, might well be a puzzle to him. Or perhaps he was only marveling at her childishness.

Est had in her hand something round and white, the size of a large pearl.

"I saved one," Est whispered. "For you."

Her small fingers trembling, she took the last sugar-drop and placed it between Abel's lips. Abel closed his eyes, and after a moment his lips closed, too, around the tip of Est's finger. Est stared up into his face with the quivering wonder of a girl who has finally coaxed a butterfly to land upon her outstretched hand.

"Roses," Abel murmured as he opened his eyes.

Palla never could quite remember what Abel said next, whether it was "It tastes like home," or "Let me take you home." This, though, was one case where the precise words used simply didn't matter.

***

_Golden Moon, 605_

Palla gave her sister a large cooking pot as a wedding gift, while Catria contributed a broom. The gifts were not expensive, but they were the traditional presents given in Macedon to a young woman who retired as a knight to set up housekeeping. The pot was too large for a pegasus to tote around, and as for the broom-- well, one hardly needed one of _those_ when sleeping under the stars. Queen Nyna had her own wedding gift-- a large estate on the border of Gra, that carried with it the implicit duty of rebuilding that end of the kingdom. Est's new broom and cooking pot would be out of place in a manor house; she would have serving-maids to cook and tend to the floors. Palla felt her own efforts to be at cross-purposes with the tide of history.

Nyna did not present her gift in person, of course. The queen reigned from Millennium Palace, while her new husband rode from one land to the next in his efforts to rebuild the Seven Nations. Only distant Talys escaped the war without significant damage, and while Altea had suffered under the rule of Dolhr, Altea was well-off compared with its neighbors Gra and Grust. Palla supposed that the wedding gave the King of Archanea an excuse to linger awhile in his homeland. Still, Marth's presence turned the wedding from a family event into a state function; the Altean citizenry apparently felt cheated when the royal wedding occurred in Pales, and so they made up for it now that a great war hero was marrying some lovely girl from a faraway country.

Est might have been the very Princess of Macedon from the way the Alteans received her. She had a dozen new friends now, ranging from a redheaded archer girl who took part in the local resistance to a village lass who passed covert messages to the League when they retook Altea. Palla felt that a number of Est's friends were mostly interested in close contact with Est's famous husband, and Est in her joy was only too happy to show off her prize.

"My husband Abel fought the Shadow Dragon _personally_." Est's small hand drifted up to rest upon Abel's shoulder, the one that bore the scars of Medeus beneath the sleeve of his wedding tunic. Est had no conception of the gulf between her husband and other warriors; it was not Est's fault, just a statement of fact. Est could not understand because Est had not been at the Keep of Dolhr, and Est had not been at the Keep because Palla and Catria--and Prince Marth-- had sent her away. To Est, the idea of actually facing down Medeus was as otherworldly as, say, taking a trip to the moon. There was no horror in it, only the thrill of risk, in the way that stealing the Mercurius blade had been a glorious caper.

Est's fierce innocence had been preserved, while a visit to Dolhr would have dented it, bruised it, perhaps stripped it entirely. Only Tiki could stand before the throne of Medeus and not feel the stain in her soul, and Tiki after all wasn't _human_. Palla and Catria bore that stain themselves so that Est could love without feeling ever under a shadow.

Palla sat in the courtyard of Altea Castle, alone save for the birds and the rustling trees. On her first visit here, she'd nearly died, surprised and cornered by a foul-tempered manakete while pursuing thieves. Ogma, badly wounded himself by the same beast, had carried her back to Lena to be healed. Palla's memories of the incident were clouded. It was as close as she had ever come to death, and yet within the hour she was tossing javelins at enemy cavaliers around the castle moat.

Such a strange thing, that border between life and death. The most skilled healers, like Elice and Lena, could take someone broken nearly beyond recognition and set them on their feet again, even as a fire might blaze anew from a single cherished spark. And yet, if that spark went cold... then, there was nothing. No human had ever returned from the far side of that border--no human, and only two of the dragonkin. And the difference between Tiki's return and that of Medeus was as itself profound as the difference between life and death.

She'd nearly lost Abel in Dolhr, nearly lost him for ever, and yet thanks to Lena they'd been laughing and sharing memories mere hours after the battle. She'd seen Abel happily wed to her beloved sister, and _that_ was something to drive her to sit in the courtyard alone, feeling things that were wholly indecent? Her perspective must have gone completely out of scale. If he'd died there in her arms at the Keep, if she'd nothing left of him but an image in the stained-glass window, how would that possibly have been a victory over her sister?

And why did she keep comforting herself with the thought that his "final words" there in Dolhr hadn't been for Est? They hadn't been for _her_, either. He spoke of Altea, of the cause, a knight to the end. And, come to think of it, Palla of the Whitewinged Order of Macedon had more important things in her life than foolish regrets over a love that never was. It was beneath her to be sitting here, brought to the verge of tears by her own imagination.

She would have dragged herself from the bench and found something useful to do had the object of her morbid imagination not walked through the courtyard at that very moment.

"Hello, my lord." Sir Abel, the Shield of Altea, lord of the manor of Marcelana. The Shield of Altea looked distinctly embarrassed; Palla saw color rise in his face.

"I hadn't planned on any of this."

"What did you intend to do following the war?"

"Honestly?" Abel tucked a strand of hair behind his ear in a gesture that Palla had seen dozens, even hundreds of times; it was one of those simple, silly things about him that had lodged fast in her brain. "I've about had my fill of fighting. I was contemplating hanging up my lance and saddle for good and doing... oh, I don't know. Being a shopkeeper."

"A _shop_keeper?"

"Keeping a village shop's not a bad life. Everyone comes to see you, you're always up on the latest news, and you can end up with some nice things in barter if your customers don't have the gold."

He did not sound facetious, strange as this ambition might be. Palla had imagined him a lifelong warrior-- after all, he'd been a knight before the fall of Altea, not a volunteer who took up arms only in rebellion. Then again, he'd no doubt had the battle of his life already. After "fighting Medeus _personally_," keeping the peace would be an anticlimax. And again, if some hearts did not long for peace, for little shops and a little house in the village, there would be nothing but war from one end of Archanea to the other.

"When you get to my advanced age," Abel was saying, "I reckon you'll see the appeal of a the quiet life." And he smiled at her, daring her to laugh at the scant number of years between them. Palla could not imagine being tied down to a little shop in some country village. Still, she could almost picture Abel behind his counter, handing out free sweets to the children and being charming to the village wives. Well, it wasn't to be.

Wasn't to be. And it seemed then to Palla, in a burst of strange intuition, that the wheels of fate might still be off-course, that something in the chain of events that led them all to this day had simply gone _wrong_. Wrong in a way that mattered far beyond Palla's own life and meaningless dreams. This should not be happening, she thought, just as she'd thought it when Macedon allied with Dolhr, when Palla's loyalty to Minerva, and Minerva's loyalty in turn to Michalis, led them to see and to commit acts that were unquestionably not right or good. And here they'd turned, and allied with Light, and faced Dolhr and actually _won_, and still....

_This should not be happening._

"What were you doing out here? It bothers me greatly when you look so dispirited, Palla."

"I was thinking on how fortunate we all were."

"You didn't have the look of someone rejoicing in good fortune."

"No, but good fortune is, after all, a relative concept. If we have been fortunate, others have been... less so." To Abel, of all people, she did not need to say any more. He took a seat beside her on the bench, his handsome face marred by a frown. But it passed quickly, as his darker moods always did.

"Well, let's all do our best to make a good peace, so that the deaths of our friends weren't pointless."

"Yes. I'm sure the king and queen are counting on my lord of Marcelana to do just that."

Abel shook his head again at the idea of his new station.

"I hope all the attention doesn't spoil Est," he said, a rueful smile touching his lips.

"It won't," Palla assured him. "The acclaim will slip away from Est like water off a dragon's back."

"Ah."

She thought of her sister's inner fragility, of the delicate wisp of a soul inside that vibrant little body. Baby Est, tagalong Est, always trailing her sisters... Est who was put away, like a doll upon her shelf, for her own protection. Palla felt a burning wetness in her eyes, and this time it wasn't purely for herself.

"Love her, Abel. Be good to her."

"I must be good to her, mustn't I?" His smile now seemed almost mystified. "I have a strange feeling that if I ever make Est shed a tear, two lovely ladies with lances and axes will come winging my way."

Palla's own tears finally spilled, and Abel comforted her as would any loving brother.

***

Palla took a long flight around the environs of the castle after her conversation with Abel. The air was heavy with the promise of rain, and low-lying clouds seemed to brush the castle tower. As she and Megaera picked up speed, the air began to feel refreshing instead of oppressive, and Palla spared a moment of pity for all those who would never know flight, never experience for themselves what it was to be suspended between earth and sky. Fliers and sailors alike scorned the land-bound, and the land-bound in turn could only look up and point in warning at those who went beyond their natural place, at humans who aspired to be one with the dragons, one with the beasts of the sea.

The most exalted human on Archanea was, after all, one of the land-bound. Palla felt compelled now to speak with him, one-on-one as they had conferred on the march to Pales. Perhaps speaking to someone besides Abel and her own sisters would help to quell the turbulence in her heart. The avuncular advice of old Jagen and the friendly compassion of Draug wouldn't do in this case; Palla needed to hear from one of the Sixteen, from someone who'd walked through Dolhr's blackest shadows. She had already spotted a white mare with rich trappings grazing alone, and so brought Megaera down at a respectful distance. Aurora's pegasus heritage carried with it the usual loathing of dragons.

Perhaps no one bore shadow of Medeus as heavily as the so-called Prince of Light. Since their return to Pales, since his marriage to Nyna, it seemed that a remote sadness hung over the new king, the way that faint wisps of cloud hung around those brilliant stars called the Seven Sisters. It was more subtle than the melancholy spells Palla noted during the campaign and the journey home, and most might never recognize the sadness as such thanks to the flurry of activity that surrounded the young ruler. But in a rare quiet moment-- without speeches or toasts, without ceremony-- the change was both clear and troubling.

Palla thought of Michalis during his final battle: the emptiness of his taunts as he dared the Whitewings to slay their own king, the shock and horror in his eyes when he'd seen Maria standing shoulder to shoulder with the other clerics of the League, the strangely ecstatic way in which he'd seemed to welcome Minerva and her axe. It had all added up to an impression of profound, even crushing, guilt-- the guilt that could only be remedied by death. It had disturbed her then, and seeing even a faint echo of it in Marth was more disturbing still.

"Hello, Palla," he greeted her, as comrade to comrade rather than ruler to subject. All the mannerisms were perfect, but there was something unmistakably _wrong_, like an untuned lute string marring an otherwise flawless performance. Palla returned the greeting, and Marth returned to his chosen task of watching the clouds along the eastern horizon.

"What will the weather be tomorrow? Abel tells me you have a gift for predicting the weather," she added, in case the joke failed her. Palla still did not completely understand the Altean sense of humor.

"Rain," he said. Palla, uncertain now whether Marth was returning the joke, decided to give attempts at humor a rest. Marth had turned away from her, and Palla found herself studying the circlet in his hair-- not the battle diadem he'd worn through the war, but a filigreed band inlaid with a jewel. Another ancient treasure of Archanea, perhaps. In spite of its delicate workmanship, Palla felt certain this crown was heavy with a significance the battle diadem never had carried.

Marth had the shard of the Starsphere in his hand again; at moments he clutched it so tightly that, but for his gloves, the sharp edges would have cut his palm.

"And the gods placed King Anri in the stars, that he might ever guard Altea, and at the other end of heaven's vault, they set the body of the Dark Dragon. And when Anri keeps watch over Altea in the night, the Dark Dragon sleeps in the earth. But when the line of Anri falters, the wheel of heaven spins again, and brings the Dragon up from the earth to reign over the darkness." Marth tossed the orb fragment up, then caught it in one hand. "Old Alison never told me the whole of the tale. Perhaps she didn't want to scare me. All these years, I've thought this was just a scorpion."

"It is, as you said, just a story that changes over the years."

"Perhaps. In the last year, I've found a great deal more truth in old stories than I'd originally thought." He slipped the shard into a fold of his tunic, and touched the small shield, the Fire Emblem, pinned to his cloak. "At times I almost think I hate the stars."

Palla was not sure how best to answer this.

"I doubt you will see them tonight," she said in the end. Here in Altea, the Golden Moon brought these gray skies; late-summer bursts of rain fell upon the ripening crops. In Macedon, the grass would all be bleached to pale gold, and for long weeks the sky would not have seen a single cloud. The Fire Dragon-- the Dark Dragon-- still governed the night. They stood together, watching the slow drift of the clouds, until Palla decided to ask a long-burning question to one of the three living who might answer.

"What did Medeus say before he died?" Palla and Catria had talked it over many a time, and never could agree on the final words of the Dragon King.

"He promised to return," Marth said, his voice flat. "It's just as well that Elice was able to save me." His right hand went automatically to the hilt of Falchion. Palla watched the king's fingers caress the jeweled pommel of the sword, then fall away as though nerveless.

"But Gharnef is gone...." In spite of the many tricks of the Dark Pontifex, it did appear that Starlight had truly broken his foul magic. "Who would raise him now?"

"I can't imagine," Marth replied. "That's the trouble, isn't it? We can never imagine...."

Rain began to fall in fat drops that felt neither warm nor cold. Water soon trickled through Palla's hair; it reminded her uncomfortably of blood flowing down her scalp. She threw her head back then, let the drops fall upon her cheeks, into her eyes, across her lips. It was only a little water, as clean as anything on earth could be. And nothing, after all, could grow without rain.

Whatever might grow, the summer rain could not wash away their shadows. Nor did speaking with Marth at all dispel the notion that something in their world had gone terribly wrong. Quite the opposite, in fact. When there was nothing more they might say to one another, Palla left him there, gazing at the sky in the direction of Talys, seeking out a flier that never would come.

***

"Cain says he doesn't have time to play landlord," Catria said. "He doesn't want the favors, either."

"Will Nyna give him a choice in the matter?"

"She may. You know how horribly obstinate Cain can be when he's thwarted."

Palla didn't know, though she could well by imagine by this time. She hoped the queen would allow Cain to serve Altea in his own way. Training a new generation of knights to keep peace was just as valuable as governing a province. Besides, as sensible as Cain was, he perhaps lacked the tact to be a good governor.

The sisters walked around the Great Hall; there was not much else they could do for exercise in the midst of all the rain. Curiosity soon slowed their brisk steps. All the windows of the cathedral told a story-- the legend of Anri, the exploits of his brother and heir, and the the life of Marth's grandfather, whose name turned out to be King Marius. Palla recognized some of the iconography, but much of it was a mystery to her. When the sisters gave up on the older windows, they turned to the new one, the one that told the tale they knew too well.

"This is for Sir Frey," Catria said of one of the medallions. "Cain told me about him; he sacrificed himself during their escape to Talys. This one is for Lena's brother Matthis-- you remember him, Palla. What an idiot he was."

Palla privately agreed Matthis was a lazy and useless youth, but she did not care to speak ill of the dead. Lena had loved her foolish brother.

"And this one--"

Catria jerked, as though struck by an arrow. Palla followed her sister's gaze and realized Catria had finally come across the Falcoknight set in the window.

"Oh... what a stupid world." Catria swiped at her bangs with the back of her hand. "If she hadn't been so damn set on a Falcon Pegasus, she'd have had a dragon that day, and--"

"Stop, Catria."

"What a stupid world," Catria repeated. "She prayed every night, you know. 'Gods above, protect Prince Marth. If you ever plan to take him, take me instead. Love, Caeda.' Every night. Well, they bloody well _did_."

"_Stop _it, Catria."

"You see it, Palla. Don't tell me you haven't noticed yourself. She got careless, and got herself killed, and it _broke_ him. And then he gets handed off to Princess Nyna like a present."

"Queen Nyna. You really must stop this, Catria." Palla never felt more calm than when trying to steer one of her sisters toward sense. Catria lapsed into a sullen silence and made a great show of examining all the other medallions in the window. She perked up only when the clock tower chimed the fall of another hour.

"I have to meet Cain for supper." And off she ran, her hair swinging and her feet light upon the stones. Palla sighed to herself and stared up through the great window. Rain trickled down the glass in rivulets, and Palla fancied to herself that Queen Liza was weeping.

***

The rains lasted a week, delaying their return to Macedon. Minerva sent them a sternly-worded letter, though Palla could see the affection between the written lines. Their own queen needed her most faithful lieutenants back at their posts-- and Palla, by now, had taken her fill of Altean hospitality. Not to mention the food.

At last, the gray shell of the sky cracked open. Through the blue gaps between the ragged edges of cloud, Palla glimpsed her escape. Abel and Est saw them off, of course. Abelandest they were now, standing so close they might have been in the same skin.

"Bye, sisters!" Est called gaily. "Come back soon!"

"Fare well, sisters!" Abel echoed his wife. "We'll be down to see you this winter." His smile was as sweet as Palla ever had seen it, his green eyes were as vivid in the sunlight now as in her memories. His hair, trimmed and newly washed, stirred in the light wind, and his clothes were more fine than any he'd worn on the march. Utterly himself, and yet so subtly changed....

Palla looked away. Others stood there as well, after all-- Gordin, back from a stint with the Archanean army, and his younger brother and apprentice Ryan. And there was Draug, and old Jagen, and some of Est's new friends... and, of course, one tall redheaded knight.

"Goodbye, Cain!" Catria shouted, waving frantically in an attempt to raise a smile from the solemn paladin. "Gods, he needs a life," she said under her breath to Palla.

"He has simple needs and wants," Palla replied. Was that necessarily a bad thing? To see the goal of one's heart so clearly, and to set a course for it without distraction? To place duty above all else, above trinkets and titles, above entanglements. It was the kind of nobility found in those infamous Altean romances, but the world had need of it.

They flew west, preferring a longer route back to Macedon rather than the direct route over Dolhr. Conquered land or not, neither Palla nor Catria wanted to see place again for a long while. The towers of Altea Castle still loomed behind them when sharp-eyed Catria spied an oddity-- one white mare, coat sparkling in the new sunlight, and one rider tearing off across the fields. Palla and Catria went low, as close as they dared without spooking Aurora. They waved and called down goodbyes, and Marth looked up at them as they passed, raised his hand in return. For an instant, every detail was sharp-- the jewel in his circlet, the creases in his gloves and the pattern embroidered on his cloak. Then he was gone, headed in one direction while Palla and Catria soared off in another. That was an image to leave Altea with, Palla thought. Not the image of Abel intertwined with Est, not of Abel laughing or singing, not Abel playing his lute or slouching elegantly atop Skylark. She fixed that final memory of the prince-- the king, rather-- in her mind's eye, and knew that she would carry it with her if she lived to be a hundred.

"Goodbye, Prince Marth," Catria whispered, though they were long out of earshot. Palla looked at her sister then, at the odd downcast air Catria suddenly displayed, and realized the tangle her sister's heart had worked itself into.

"Oh, Catria. You can't have...."

But she had. A spot of deep pink showed on Catria's cheeks, and her eyes were abnormally bright.

"If he were happy, I could stand it. Maybe. I'm not as generous as you. But he's _not_ happy. And I'm not happy. And...." Words failed Catria, and for a second it appeared the brightness in her eyes would spill over. "Hyah!"

Catria urged Alecto higher, away from Palla. She did not look back at Altea a second time. Palla cast one more backward glance herself, at the green, lush land of her sister's new home. Est might blossom there, like the famous roses of Altea, but Palla knew herself now to be rootless. She belonged to the air. Palla might linger in Macedon awhile, like the swallows that traversed the continent from north to south every year, but the future lay elsewhere. Perhaps the courses of fate would take her across the glittering sea, where unknown continents awaited her, where the same stars wheeled overhead in the night but the patterns they formed bore different names. Where all the stories were different from the ones etched into her spirit.

They made for the south, together yet separate: two fliers, each with an impossible longing in her heart. Palla watched their shadows pass over the earth-- Altea, Chiasmir, Grust, and on to Macedon. There, they would see what they might salvage from this victory.

***

**Palla **the White returned to Macedon to work on restoring her nation. Rumor has it she plans an overseas journey in the near future.

**Catria** the White returned to Macedon with her sister, and also works for the good of Macedon. She is talking, though, of a transfer to the Archanean army.

Queen **Nyna** of Archanea still governs from her capital, and is loved by the people of Pales for her fair looks and kind heart.

King **Marth **of Archanea continues his efforts at rebuilding the empire; he is rarely seen in Pales.

**Abel** has replaced Sir Jagen as the popular hero of Alteans; his vassals praise their new lord's fair mind and just heart. It is said that Queen Nyna is considering promoting him to Governor of Gra.

**Est **enjoys her life as Lady of Marcelana. She insists on using the cooking pot and broom that her sisters gave her, and she is much happier as Abel's wife than as a knight of Macedon. The people call her the Fair Rose of Macedon, and Abel thinks his charming wife has done more to keep the peace than an entire brigade.

**Cain** declined the title that Queen Nyna offered him. He lives and works in Altea, training the next generation of Altean cavaliers. Recently he has begun to work with Malledeus to become an official advisor to their king.

Princess** Elice** became Bishop of Altea, and governs the country as Regent in her brother's stead. Thanks to her research with fragments of the Aum Staff, the secrets for creating the resurrection spell have been uncovered.

Duke **Hardin** of Aurelis will likely succeed his elder brother as King before long. He has made Princess Elice an offer of marriage, which she is considering.

**Merric** the Wind Sage returned to Khadein to complete his studies.

**Linde** the Light Sage was convinced by Merric to come to Khadein and experience for herself the richness and culture of the city of magic. Linde finds Khadein very nice indeed.

Queen **Minerva** of Macedon is loved by her people but faces opposition from her brother's former generals. She often contemplates abdication, but has vowed to reign at least until her younger sister is of age.

Princess **Maria** of Macedon studies healing magic under Queen Nyna in Pales. She has recently achieved mastery of the Aum Staff. Maria still misses her brother **Michalis** very much...

**Tiki,** despite her wish to live among her friends, was taken away by **Lord Gotoh** after the war.

The **Starsphere **is still broken, and eleven pieces are unaccounted for.

The wheel of heaven continues to spin, as the **Hero** and the **Dragon **move in their eternal dance across the skies. No story ever ends, the teller just chooses a place to break off....

***** The End? *****

Author's Notes: "...[I]t's a cold and very broken hallelujah."

I'm not really intending a sequel, I just want to make clear that even though this doesn't follow the continuity of FE3's "War of Heroes," war is coming nonetheless. That's what the whole issue of the Starsphere shard and the constellations has been about since Chapter One-- there hasn't really been a victory yet, just a break in the battle. Some characters may fare better than they do in the official timeline and some will fare worse, but people will die and hearts will be (further) broken.

Regarding broken hearts:

No, I was never planning to actually go with Palla/Abel. He was destined for Est the whole time. I chose one way of depicting Palla's way of coping with it; for another take on it, please read Shimizu Hitomi's "Still Waters." I think my Palla is more bitter about things than the "Still Waters" edition.

Yeah, Catria was in love with Marth the whole time. Cain's her good buddy, and she might feel attracted to him on some level, but she's been "admiring" Marth all along. The evidence was there, but Palla was misreading the Cain thing, drawing a false parallel between herself and Abel.

Elice/Hardin is a crack idea from a 'fic that Shimizu Hitomi talked about but isn't actually planning to write. It really grabbed me.

Merric/Linde-- yeah, I went there in the end. I want it, Linde wants it, and if Elice has Hardin, why shouldn't Merric look elsewhere?

Observations on Macedonian hair color courtesy of Edgemaster025


End file.
